Russian President Vladimir Putin officially began exploration of Siberia’s Kovykta gas field on Wednesday, which is expected to boost exports to China amid a crisis between Moscow and the West.
“We are launching the Kovykta field, the largest in Eastern Siberia. (…) It’s starting to work,” Putin said at a ceremony broadcast live on television, according to the French agency AFP.
Putin said the new gas field would start “a real development dynamic for the eastern regions of Russia”.
“A powerful and strategic industrial complex is emerging in eastern Russia,” he stressed.
Putin said the new field would “ensure the reliable supply of gas” to both Russian companies and foreign partners.
The new field offers “new opportunities for economic and social development, as well as new opportunities for our growing exports,” added the director of Russian giant Gazprom, Alexei Miller.
The Kovykta field, located near Lake Baical in Siberia, is intended to supply the Siberian Force 1 gas pipeline, which has been connecting the Chaiandina field (Yakutia) to northeastern China since late 2019.
Russia has been trying to increase its gas supplies to China for several years and has accelerated this move in recent months, trying to soften the effects of economic sanctions imposed by the West over its invasion of Ukraine on February 24 this year.
Since the invasion, Moscow has drastically reduced its supplies of hydrocarbons to Europe and turned to Asia to make up for revenue losses.
The Russian authorities want to increase their supplies to 20,000 million cubic meters of gas per year, namely by using reserves in the Kovykta field.
Russia also plans to build the Siberian Force 2 pipeline from 2024 to supply China through Mongolia, another sign that its energy strategy has taken an eastward turn.
In addition to supply cuts in response to sanctions, the war in Ukraine has highlighted Europe’s reliance on Russian supplies, which have also sought other markets, including the United States and the Persian Gulf states.
The energy supply crisis caused a general rise in the prices of essential goods in economies still trying to recover from two years of trouble caused by the covid-19 pandemic.
Source: DN
