Kremlin: China is interested in increasing gas supplies from Russia
The Chairman of the Management Committee of Russian energy company Gazprom, Alexey Miller, on the air of the program “Moscow. Kremlin. Putin " said that Gazprom’s Chinese partners from the state-owned oil and gas company the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) show great interest in increasing the supplies beyond the volume agreed in the thirty-year contract, reports news agency TASS.
The current contract for the supply of Russian gas to China through the Power of Siberia pipeline, which was signed in May 2014, provides for the deliveries of 38 billion cubic meters of gas per year. At the end of November last year, Gazprom laid in the documents the possibility of increasing supplies to 48 billion cubic meters. The document suggested covering the difference by producing additional 9.26 billion cubic meters of gas per year at the Kovykta gas condensate field, located in the Irkutsk region.
At the St. Petersburg International Gas Forum in October 2018, Miller spoke about discussing possibilities of supplying gas in excess of the contract volume with the Chinese partners.
Earlier, Miller noted a high growth rate of demand in China, which since the beginning of 2018 amounted to 17.5% versus 15.3% in 2017. According to him, the share of pipeline gas in the Chinese market will continue to grow.