BEIJING, Dec 3 (NNN-XINHUA) – Chinese President, Xi Jinping, had a video call with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, Monday afternoon, as the two heads of state jointly witnessed the launching ceremony of the China-Russia east-route natural gas pipeline.
“East-route natural gas pipeline is a landmark project of China-Russia energy cooperation and a paradigm of deep convergence of both countries’ interests and win-win cooperation,” Xi told Putin.
The east-route natural gas pipeline began providing China with Russian natural gas, scheduled to reach five billion cubic metres in 2020, and increase to 38 billion cubic metres annually from 2024, under a 30-year contract, signed between the China National Petroleum Corp and Russian gas giant, Gazprom, in May, 2014.
Speaking highly of the arduous efforts Chinese and Russian builders and companies made, in frozen and snow-covered land in the past five years, Xi said, they have shown to the world their consummate skills and the fruitful results of China-Russia cooperation.
Xi and Putin witnessed the signing of the pipeline agreements in 2014, in Shanghai.
The launch of the pipeline is not only an important result at the current stage but also a new start for future cooperation, Xi said.
Stressing that he and Putin agreed to continue putting bilateral ties as a priority of each other’s foreign relations and enhancing strategic coordination and cooperation, Xi called on both countries to redouble their efforts, to initiate more key projects, like the east-route natural gas pipeline, to boost both countries’ development and better benefit both peoples.
Putin, who made the video call from the Russian city of Sochi, said, it is of great historic significance that the east-route natural gas pipeline was launched on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of Russia-China diplomatic ties.
Hailing the five-year toil of construction teams from both countries on the project under extreme weather and the completion on schedule, Putin said, Russia will provide one trillion cubic metres of natural gas to China in the next 30 years.
This is conducive to the realisation of a Russia-China trade volume of 200 billion U.S. dollars in 2024.
During the video call, China and Russia representatives at northeast China’s Heihe station, and Russia’s Atamanskaya compressor station and Chayandin gas field, reported in turn to the two presidents that, they were ready to receive or provide natural gas.
The cross-border gas pipeline has a 3,000-km section in Russia and a 5,111-km stretch in China.– NNN-XINHUA
