Russia and China have agreed on the Power of Siberia–2 gas pipeline. What you need to know

Russia and China have signed a memorandum on the construction of the Power of Siberia–2 gas pipeline. It will pass through Mongolia and will be able to supply up to 50 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year. An agreement was also signed to increase the capacity of the existing Power of Siberia gas pipeline to China. What you need to know about Russia's gas exports is in the Izvestia article.

What did Miller tell you about

• Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, spoke about the breakthrough in the construction of the Power of Siberia–2 gas pipeline following talks in China between Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh. A legally binding memorandum was signed on the construction of the Soyuz–Vostok gas pipeline along with its transit section through Mongolia. According to Miller, the new gas pipeline will allow delivering up to 50 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia to China. Deliveries will be carried out for 30 years.

• Miller also spoke about the agreement between Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to increase supplies via the existing Power of Siberia gas pipeline from 38 billion to 44 billion cubic meters of gas per year. The design capacity of the Far Eastern Route (also known as the Power of Siberia – 3), which will connect Sakhalin's fields with China, will also be increased. It will amount to 12 billion cubic meters instead of 10 billion.

• Miller said that the cost of Russian gas for China will still be discussed, noting that it will be lower than for European buyers due to the shorter distance from the field. He also said that at the moment, payments between Russia and China are carried out in equal shares in rubles and in yuan.

How the Forces of Siberia–2 project developed

• The idea of supplying pipeline gas from Eastern Siberia to China has been developing since the early 2000s. The first project, which eventually became the Power of Siberia gas pipeline, connected the Kovyktinskoye field in the Irkutsk region and the Chayadinskoye field in Yakutia with the Amur Gas Processing Plant, from where gas goes to the Far East and China. At the same time, the possibility of sending another pipe either through Mongolia or directly through a short section of the border with China in the Altai Republic (which was associated with one of the project names of the Altai gas pipeline) was discussed.

• The Power of Siberia was opened in 2019, after which substantive discussions began on a new gas pipeline, which was eventually decided to run through Mongolia. Although the specific route and resource base of the pipeline have not yet been determined, it is assumed that it will supply gas that was not received by Europe under the Nord Stream project. Deliveries will be made to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in western China. In the future, it will be possible to connect the branch with the domestic Chinese West–East gas pipeline, which supplies fuel to the industrial areas of the coast.

• Although the media periodically reported that China was not particularly interested in additional supplies of Russian gas, negotiations intensified in June 2025. According to American media reports, Beijing has negatively perceived the Israeli-Iranian conflict from the point of view of its own energy security. China receives significant volumes of liquefied natural gas from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, but due to the threat of closure of the Strait of Hormuz, it decided to protect itself through an alternative supply route.

Where else does Russia supply gas

• Besides China, Turkey is one of the most important destinations for Russian gas. The Blue Stream and Turkish Stream gas pipelines run there from the Krasnodar Territory along the bottom of the Black Sea. The former only delivers gas to Turkish consumers, while the latter, in addition to Turkey, provides fuel to the countries of Southeastern Europe through the Balkan Stream gas pipeline.

Build into cubes: the Power of Siberia – 2 project may be revived in the near future

According to experts, Moscow and Beijing are able to reach an agreement on the gas pipeline as early as this year.

• Russian gas is thus supplied to Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Greece, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania and Slovakia. In total, almost 50 billion cubic meters of gas are supplied to Turkey via both branches. The EU countries received 8.3 billion cubic meters of Russian fuel in the first six months of 2025.

• Russian gas is also flowing towards Central Asia. By the end of 2024, Kazakhstan received 3.8 billion cubic meters of Russian gas, and in 2025 supplies increased to 4.097 billion cubic meters in the first half of the year. The republic also acts as a transit country for supplies to Uzbekistan via the Central Asia—Center branch. Tashkent purchased the same 3.8 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas in 2024. At the same time, Kazakhstan is preparing to modernize its transit pipeline, which will increase supplies to Uzbekistan to 11 billion cubic meters in the future. m per year.

• By the end of 2024, the total export of Russian pipeline gas amounted to 119 billion cubic meters, an increase of 15.6% over the year. Separately, Russia also supplies liquefied natural gas to foreign countries, the volume of supplies in 2024 amounted to 47.2 billion cubic meters.