China to Build Almost 460-Miles Gas Pipeline For Supplies From Russia

Chinese Ministry of Environment Protection gave permission to China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to build a 457 miles gas pipeline for Russian gas supplies along the eastern route, the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

BEIJING (Sputnik) – The site's main trunk line must join together county of Heihe in Heilongjiang province and city of Songyuan in Changling county.

"The engineering process…has already been approved in an appropriate way by the competent authorities," the statement said.

The ministry added that it agrees with the proposals on the environment protection measures, describing the nature of the construction, the scale and direction, which are enlisted in the report on the construction's environmental impact.

In May 2014 Russian state-owned company Gazprom and CNPC signed a contract for the gas sales on the "Eastern" route. The contract envisages supplies of Russian gas to China in the amount of 38 billion cubic meters per year for the period of 30 years. The "Eastern" route is meant for supplies of gas to China through Yakutsk and Irkutsk gas production centers on the main gas pipeline "Power of Siberia".