Russia, China Start Construction on Siberian Gas Pipeline
On September 1, Russia began construction on a new pipeline to China. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli attended a ceremony in the Siberian city of Yakutsk to launch the project.
Called the Power of Siberia, the new pipeline is scheduled to start pumping gas to China in early 2019. It is expected to ship 4 trillion cubic meters of gas to China over a 30-year period. It will also pump gas to eastern Russia.
Putin told the audience at the ceremony that the new pipeline will, as he said, “significantly strengthen the economic cooperation with countries in the Asia-Pacific region and above all—our key partner China.”
Both Putin and Zhang called it the world’s largest construction project. Investment from both nations will be more than $70 billion. The completed project will create the world’s largest fuel network. It will give Russia the ability to link its European gas pipeline with its eastern network.
The deal will greatly reduce Russia’s dependence on European buyers, lessening the effect of economic sanctions for its role in the Ukrainian crisis.
More importantly, it will give Russia the ability to stop gas deliveries to Europe while still selling gas to Asia. This pipeline has the potential to revolutionize Russian-European relations.
Russia will soon be able to, as Putin said, “more effectively implement gas flows—either more to the West or to the East depending on world markets.”
China is Russia’s largest single trading partner. Russia is also allowing China to invest in the Vankor oil and gas fields in Siberia. China has also been allowed to enter a strategic relationship with Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil company.
The Trumpet has forecast Russia’s return as a major world power that will ally itself with China and break its dependence on Europe. Russia’s new pipeline and investment deal show how this is happening today. For more information on this trend, watch Gerald Flurry’s Key of David program “Putin Remembers Yugoslavia.”
