PipeChina starts key tunnel work for Sino-Russian gas pipeline

China Oil & Gas Pipeline Network Corp, the country's largest energy infrastructure company, said it has started tunneling through the Yangtze River for its China-Russia East-Route natural gas pipeline on Tuesday, marking new progress in the two countries' energy cooperation to improve the capacity of the natural gas supply in China.

The project will hold records as the world's longest single excavation, the deepest tunnel, the highest water pressure, and the largest diameter tunnel of its kind, said the company.

It is expected that in 2025, Russian natural gas will pass directly through the tunnel to Shanghai. By then, natural gas will be transported to the Yangtze River Delta region, crossing through the provinces of Northeast and North China, with an annual supply of 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

This will improve the region's emergency support capacity, to meet the development needs of natural gas as well as people's gas needs.

China Oil & Gas Piping Network Corp, also known as PipeChina, was founded in 2019 to promote fair competition in the upper and lower reaches of the market. The company has worked to open up oil and gas pipeline facilities to all eligible users and support connectivity between and equal access among such facilities.

The last section of China-Russia East Route will stretch from Hebei to Shanghai, crossing big gas-consuming provinces, Shandong and Jiangsu, said Li Ziyue, an analyst with Bloomberg NEF.

"Total gas consumption in these regions reached around 75 billion cubic meters in 2020, or almost a quarter of national gas demand last year," she said.

"The 19 billion cubic meters of Russian gas in the future will further guarantee and diversify gas supplies along the route and intensify already fierce competition in the Yangtze River Delta area, supplied by the West–East Gas Pipeline, Sichuan – Shanghai pipeline and several terminals around the delta."