Russia and Turkmenistan are not competitors in the field of natural gas supplies to China, Russian Ambassador to Ashgabat Ivan Volynkin told TASS.
The diplomat emphasised that the two countries are reliable suppliers of hydrocarbons. "...Our country supplies gas mainly to the northern and north-eastern regions of China, while Turkmenistan supplies gas to the western provinces."
China is currently embarking on a project to build a fourth branch of the gas pipeline from Turkmenistan. This will increase the capacity to 65bn cubic metres from the current 40bn cubic metres, the outcome of Turkmen President Serdar Berdimuhamedov's state visit to Beijing in January 2023.
At the same time, Russia's major new Power of Siberia-2 project with a design capacity of 50bn cubic metres of gas to China via Mongolia is under discussion. Experts told Daryo that in this way Gazprom wants to compensate for the loss of the European market due to the war in Ukraine.
Gazprom now supplies gas to China through the first Power of Siberia pipeline, which was launched at the end of 2019. It is expected to deliver 22bn cubic metres of gas in 2023, then volumes will be increased to reach 38bn by 2027.
In February 2022, Beijing also agreed to purchase 10bn cubic metres of gas from Russia's Sakhalin Island annually by 2026, which will be transported through a new pipeline across the Sea of Japan to China's Heilongjiang province.
Credits: Eziz Boyarov
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