Altai gas pipeline to China: project and construction

The Altai gas pipeline is a projected gas main intended for the export of natural gas from the Western Siberia region to China. Exit to Chinese territory is assumed on the stretch of the Russian-Chinese border between Kazakhstan and Mongolia. The "Altai" gas pipeline, the scheme of which is shown below, will pass through the territories of six Russian regions.

Background of the project

Back in 2004, between Gazprom and the Chinese state oil and gas company CNPC, an agreement was reached on the development of strategic cooperation. Even then, the Chinese thought about ways of supplying natural gas to their rapidly developing market. After all, the growth of gas consumption in their country since the beginning of the 21st century is significantly ahead of the increase in its domestic production.

Current estimates show that by 2020 China will consume more than 300 billion cubic meters ^of gas, which is three times the current volume of its production (about 100 billion cubic meters).

First steps

In the development of the above-mentioned agreement, in March 2006, during the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the country, a Memorandum on the supply of Russian gas to China was signed. The signatures were put by the chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee Alexey Miller and the general director of CNPC Chen Geng. The memorandum defined the timing of the implementation of gas pipelines, volumes and two supply routes: from the Western Siberia - the gas pipeline "Altai", from Eastern Siberia - the pipeline "Power of Siberia."

In the summer of the same year, 2006, the Coordination Committee, whose task included the implementation of the Altai project, started working. In autumn, Gazprom and the government of the Altai Republic, bordering the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China, signed a cooperation agreement detailing how the gas pipeline through the Altai will be built.

Years of approvals and prikidok

However, the project did not move easily. Several years went on difficult negotiations with Chinese partners on developing the order of its financing and determining the formula for the price of Russian gas. Only in the summer of 2009 a memorandum was signed between Russia and China, confirming the achievement of mutual understanding between the parties, and in the summer of the same year a Framework Agreement was signed between Gazprom and CNPC containing a formula for the price of gas tied to the cost of oil.

In 2010, the same two companies signed the Extended Basic Conditions for the Supply of Gas from Russia to China. It was expected that the export contract will be signed in 2011, and deliveries will begin in late 2015. However, this did not happen. The Chinese partners decided to limit their supplies of gas to the eastern route - the "Power of Siberia", by signing a 30-year contract in May 2014 worth $ 400 billion. In September of the same year, 2014, the construction of this gas main started.

What is the "Altai" gas pipeline? 2014 brought new hope for the revitalization of this project. In November of that year, the leaders of both countries, Russia and China, held regular talks. According to their results, another memorandum was signed, which fixed the intention of the parties to increase the volume of gas supplies to China by half, the main instrument for this was the "Altai" gas pipeline. 2014 and 2015 Passed in anticipation of decisive shifts, but so far they have not followed.

Altai gas pipeline: news of recent months

In early September 2015, Alexei Miller said that he expects to sign a contract on gas exports to China along the western route, which is increasingly referred to as the "Force of Siberia-2", in the spring of next year. However, in the same month, the leader of the Gazprom Export division, E. Burmistrova, reported that negotiations with the Chinese are very difficult. And agreements on price, especially taking into account "dramatic changes in the market", have not yet been achieved.

Then the price of oil was fifty dollars per barrel, today - less than thirty. It is clear that in such conditions it is unlikely to reach an agreement until spring if the price of oil continues to fluctuate. In November 2015, the head of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation A.Novak said that the slowdown in the decision on the western route of gas supplies was caused by the slowdown in the growth of the Chinese economy. Since then, they have further decreased.

In the conditions of the collapse of world oil prices, Gazprom and CNPC will have to look for a new model for cooperation. Therefore, the construction of the "Altai" gas pipeline will be slightly postponed. However, "to put a cross" on the whole project so far no one is going.

Route of the gas main

The Altai gas pipeline, 2800 kilometers long, will start from the Purpeisk compressor station of the existing Urengoy-Surgut-Chelyabinsk pipeline. He will transport gas from the Nadym and Urengoy fields in Western Siberia.

The total length of the Russian section will be 2,666 km, including 205 kilometers through the lands of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, 325 kilometers through the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area, 879 kilometers in the Tomsk Region, 244 kilometers in the Novosibirsk Region, 422 kilometers in the Altai Territory and 591 kilometers Km in the Altai Republic.

Its final point on the territory of Russia will be the mountain pass Kanas. Most of the gas pipeline will be built within the technical corridor of existing pipelines, such as Urengoy-Surgut-Chelyabinsk, North Tyumen-Surgut-Omsk, Nizhnevartovsk gas processing plant-Parabel-Kuzbass, Novosibirsk-Kuzbass, Novosibirsk-Barnaul, and, finally, Barnaul-Biysk.

In China, the Altai gas pipeline will enter Xinjiang, where it will be connected to the internal gas pipeline "West-East".

Technical description

The diameter of the pipeline will be 1420 mm. The design capacity will be 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year, and the total costs for the entire project are expected to be up to $ 14 billion. The main line will be equipped with the most modern compressor stations. The pipeline will be managed by Tomsktransgaz, a subsidiary of Gazprom.

Criticism of the project

Did everyone in Russia like the Altai project? The gas pipeline is planned to be launched through the Ukok Plateau in the bordering Kosh-Agach region of the Altai Republic, which is a natural habitat for the snow leopard and other rare species of endangered animals.

Today, on the territory of the Ukok Plateau , the State Park "Nature Park - Pokoya Ukok", established and managed by the authorities of the Altai Republic, operates. The administration of the natural park expresses fears that the construction of the gas pipeline will negatively affect the ecology of this unique corner of nature.

It is primarily about the destabilization of soils that are permafrost, as well as the destabilization of seismic processes (due to drilling operations) in the 8-9 point seismicity zone.

There are fears that the self-healing of disturbed in the construction of natural biocomplexes in the harsh conditions of Ukok can take several decades. Therefore, Altai ecologists propose to conduct a public eco-review of the project and conduct field research along the proposed route, and subsequently conduct continuous eco-monitoring of the area.

Is it possible to bypass the Ukok plateau?

This issue arose in 2006 at the stage of the initial drafting of the project. The matter is that the choice of the route is limited to a very small stretch of the Russian-Chinese border of 54 km, which runs along the Kanas mountain pass, adjacent to the Ukok plateau.

The defenders of nature immediately came up with proposals to bypass the plateau along the territories of neighboring states - Kazakhstan or Mongolia. However, these proposals were not supported either by Gazprom, where they said that such a variant of the route would be much more expensive than the Russian authorities, whose speaker in 2007 was the then head of the Altai Republic, A. Berdnikov.

He bluntly stated that the route was chosen for political reasons by the country's top leadership, and the "Mongolian" or "Kazakh" variants of the route carry too high political risks.

In the light of the current crisis in relations between Russia and Ukraine, which forced the Gazprom management to declare its intention to stop the transit of Russian gas through the Ukrainian gas transportation system after 2019, the Russian leadership's decision to pave the route of the Altai gas pipeline exclusively through its own territory seems prudent.