On December 21, the Kovykta gas condensate field in Irkutsk Oblast and the Kovykta-Chayanda section of the Siberian Power natural gas pipeline were officially put into operation, which means that the entire Siberian Power pipeline is fully operational.
The Siberian Power pipeline started construction in September 2014, is approximately 3,000 kilometers long and has a diameter of 1,420 millimeters, passing through three federal subjects of the Russian Federation, including Irkutsk Oblast, the Sakha Republic and Amurskaya Oblast, and reaching the Russian-Chinese border in Blagoveshchensk. Together with the China-Russia east-route natural gas pipeline, it forms the China-Russia East-route Natural Gas Pipeline Project. In 2019, Russia started supplying gas to China via the Siberian Power pipeline, with the volume increasing year by year, eventually reaching 38 billion cubic meters per year, and this is for a 30-year contract.
