The Power of Siberia gas pipeline export to China will be stopped for prevention in the second half of March, Interfax reported with reference to Gazprom.
The company representative said that the parties decided to carry out scheduled preventive maintenance of gas pipeline equipment and systems twice a year. They are planning to stop the gas pipeline in spring and autumn. Gazprom and the China National Petroleum and Gas Corporation (CNPC) are now agreeing on exact dates for the first prevention, a spokesman for the Russian company added.
The Power of Siberia gas pipeline with a length of 3,000 km was launched on December 2, 2019. After the launch in December, 328 million cubic meters of gas were delivered through the pipeline, that is, approximately 11 million cubic meters per day. Under the contract, in 2020 the volume of deliveries should be 5 billion cubic meters. With this in mind, as well as with the take-or-pay level (take or pay) in the contract of 85%, this year deliveries may fluctuate at the level of 11-14 million cubic meters per day, Interfax notes.
The contract for the supply of gas to China was signed in 2014 for a period of 30 years. Negotiations took more than 10 years. The total value of Gazprom’s contract with CNPC is about $ 400 billion, Miller reported in 2014. Then the cost of the gas pipeline was estimated at $ 55 billion. In April 2018, the head of the construction department of Gazprom, Andrei Vorobyov, called the figure 1.1 trillion rubles. Bloomberg wrote that the contract with CNPC was the largest in the history of Gazprom. The agency called the Silibi Force “a symbol of Vladimir Putin’s reliance” on the fast-growing economies of Asia, at a time when relations with the West were deteriorating.
The Stroygazmontazh company participated in the construction of the gas pipeline, and Arkady Rotenberg sold it to Gazprom, as well as Stroytransneftegaz Gennady Timchenko and other enterprises.