MOSCOW – The leaders of Russia and China have overseen the inauguration ofa landmark pipeline project, which is set to be delivering Russian naturalgas from Siberia to China, as Beijing and Moscow move to strengtheneconomic and political relations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinpingparticipated via a video link in a ceremony to launch the 3,000-kilometerPower of Siberia pipeline.
The pipeline will transport Russian natural gas from eastern Siberia tonortheast China. Gas flows via the pipeline will rise to 38 billion cubicmeters (bcm) per year in 2025.
Putin called the pipeline “the world’s biggest construction project.”
“This is a genuinely historic event not only for the global energy marketbut above all for us, for Russia and China,” he said from the Russian BlackSea resort of Sochi.
“This step takes Russo-Chinese strategic cooperation in energy to aqualitative new level and brings us closer to (fulfilling) the task, settogether with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, of taking bilateral trade to $200billion by 2024,” the Russian leader added.
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In turn, the Chinese leader said the newly-launched pipeline was “alandmark project of bilateral energy cooperation” and an “example of deepintegration and mutually beneficial cooperation.”
Neither Xi, nor Putin commented on Monday on the gas price Beijing is setto pay under the contract, but the project is expected to last for threedecades and generate $400 billion for Russian state coffers.
Experts say the project will possibly turn China to Russia’s second-largestgas customer after Germany.
The pipeline is launched as Moscow is already expected to launch two othermajor energy projects to Germany and Turkey.
