(Yicai) Nov. 19 -- The last joint in the China-Russia East Route Natural Gas Pipeline, which stretches more than 8,000 kilometers from the gas fields of eastern Siberia to Shanghai, was soldered on yesterday in Haimen, eastern Jiangsu province, marking the completion of a major energy channel to eastern China.

The pipeline has now entered the final stage of being prepared to be commissioned before it is put into full operation, PipeChina, the state-owned body in charge of China’s gas and oil system, said yesterday.

Once fully operating, the gas pipeline will supply 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year, enough to meet the yearly gas demand of 130 million urban households, to the northeastern provinces of Jilin, Heilongjiang and Liaoning, as well as the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta and other eastern parts of the country, the Beijing-based company said.

The China-Russia East Route Natural Gas Pipeline enters China at Heihe in northeastern Heilongjiang province from Blagoveshchensk. It runs for 3,000 km across Russia and for 5,111 km across China. Some 1,740 km of existing pipelines were used and 3,371 km of new pipelines were built. The total steel consumption is equivalent to that of 280 Eiffel towers.

The pipeline was built in three stages, namely the northern section, the middle section and the southern section. The northern and middle sections were put into operation in 2019 and 2020 respectively. The southern section stretches 1,509 km from north to south through Hebei, Shandong and Jiangsu provinces to Shanghai. Construction started in 2020 and this last section is expected to be fully connected by the end of this year.

So far, the China-Russia East Line has safely transported more than 78 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

Editor: Kim Taylor