Russia has fast-tracked ratification of a key agreement with China that will pave the way for the start of construction on the border-crossing segment of a third gas export pipeline from Russia to China.

The agreement, signed by the governments of the two countries in January, would clear the way for surveying work and construction preparations on the pipeline — Sila Sibiri 3.

The upper chamber of the Russian parliament, the Federation Council, is expected to vote to ratify the document on Wednesday this week, according to its official agenda.

Last week, the agreement was ratified by the Duma, the lower chamber of the parliament.

The document has been cleared for voting by the Federation Council’s international committee, a member of parliament body disclosed in a social-media post on Tuesday.

The pipeline section will stretch more than 60 kilometres from the town of Dalnerechensk in Russia’s far east to the Chinese town of Hulin.

The cross-border connection is to be built jointly by Russian gas giant Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), using CNPC’s pipeline construction subsidiary.

The connector will carry gas from the existing Gazprom-operated Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok pipeline, which is undergoing a capacity-expansion programme.

Gazprom plans to deliver gas to China from a group of three fields in the Kirinsky block offshore Sakhalin island’s northeast coast, where development has been on hold for several years because of low domestic demand in Russia’s far east.

According to marine traffic resources, the Polyarnaya Zvezda — one of two Gazprom-owned, modern semi-submersible rigs — returned to northeast Sakhalin island in May after being moored near an island in Indonesia.

The rig, together with its sister unit, Severnoye Siyanie, has pre-drilled a network of future development wells on the South Kirinskoye field, which is the largest gas deposit within the Kirinsky block.

Sila Sibiri 3 is set to carry up to 10 billion cubic metres per annum of Russian gas from the Kirinsky block to China.

Gazprom executives have said that they consider China a prime export market after Russian pipeline gas supplies to Europe fell this year to 25% of what they were before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Gazprom has a long-term contract with CNPC in place for the delivery of up to 38 Bcm of gas per annum to China from two fields in East Siberia — Chayanda and Kovykta — via the Sila Sibiri 1 pipeline.

Chayanda reserves search

Gazprom executive chairman Alexei Miller has said the company will strive to increase Sila Sibiri 1 gas exports above the maximum contracted level.

However, Sila Sibiri 1 has no connection to Gazprom’s legacy gas fields in West Siberia. The Chayanda and Kovykta fields have total estimated gas reserves of about 3.2 trillion cubic metres.

According to disclosures by Gazprom subsidiary Gazprom Morskiye Proyekty, the company will resume exploration work on the Chayanda licence area later this year with two exploration wells planned.

Wells 321-111 and 321-112 are scheduled to test the productivity of gas reservoirs at the licence area at the depth of about 1800 metres, the disclosures said.

Because of the remote location of the drilling sites, long winter conditions and required preparation and construction works, drilling assignments are planned to last more than 438 days for the first well and an estimated 290 days for the second.

Gazprom’s second gas export pipeline project, Sila Sibiri 2, will carry up to 50 Bcm of gas per annum from West Siberia across Mongolia but has not yet been agreed with China.