China hopes that the construction of a new natural gas pipeline connecting the country to Russia via Mongolia will soon see “substantial progress,” President Xi Jinping has said, following a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing on Wednesday, CCTV reports.
President Putin is currently visiting China for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF).
Effective cooperation with Russia would ensure grain and energy security, the Chinese leader said, adding that strengthening ties between Moscow and Beijing is a long-term goal.
The project, dubbed the Power of Siberia 2, will bring natural gas from Russia’s Yamal peninsula, which – prior to the Ukraine conflict – used to serve the EU market through several pipelines, including Nord Stream, which was sabotaged in September 2022.
Russian officials are planning to increase pipeline gas supplies to China by 50 billion cubic meters (bcm) annually via Power of Siberia 2, while the existing Power of Siberia pipeline is due to provide 38 bcm per year by 2025.
Xi also said that he hoped to expand cross-border tourism cooperation between the nations within the framework of the Great Tea Road project, and also that the China-Mongolia-Russia economic corridor will facilitate the development of high-quality transport links.
Russia has dramatically raised energy supplies to China, which is presently ranked as the world’s second-largest oil consumer, shortly after the EU decreased energy imports from Russia as part of sanctions.
Earlier in the day, Aleksey Miller, the CEO of Russian state-run energy giant Gazprom, revealed that Russian gas exports to China would soon reach the volume sold to the EU before the bloc imposed sanctions.
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