Gazprom finds new way to supply gas to China

Gazprom hasn’t been able to come to an agreement with China on gas supplies along the western route and on the eve of the Putin's visit to China offers the Chinese a new way of the supply - through a gas pipeline from Sakhalin. Russia is extremely interested in such project, as the key for the region South Kirinskoye field suddenly came under US sanctions, which severely restricted the possibility of its development. But the question is whether Beijing is ready to seriously spoil relations with Washington for Moscow.

Yesterday, head of Gazprom Alexei Miller announced that the company could sign a memorandum with Chinese CNPC on pipeline gas deliveries from the Russian Far East “in the near future”. According to him, the companies "included the project in the draft program of joint actions of the strategic partnership". Mr. Miller made a statement in Beijing by results of the regular talks with CNPC on gas supplies along the western route (via Altai, the project is now called Power of Siberia-2). The contract is very important for Gazprom, as it will allow the company to use the production capacities in Western Siberia, which are now partly idle. But in this regard the parties are unlikely to achieve considerable success - the press release of Gazprom says only that "the negotiations are on track". According to the Kommersant’s interlocutors familiar with the situation, there are still fundamental differences at the price, volume and time of the deliveries.