Russia has moved ahead in securing the required legislative framework to proceed with its plan to build a third natural gas export pipeline to China as it urgently seeks to expands access to the Chinese market to help replace the loss of European customers.

A resolution, signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin at the end of the last week, delivered a formal go-ahead to an intergovernmental agreement with China on laying a key segment of the pipeline.

The 60-plus kilometre section between the Russian town of Dalnerechensk in the country’s far east and the Chinese town of Hulin is scheduled to be built jointly by Russian gas giant Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), using a CNPC’s pipeline construction subsidiary.

The connector will be fed with gas from existing the Gazprom-operated Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok pipeline, which is already 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.

Mishustin’s resoluton calls for the government’s relevant ministries to submit a draft law to the Russian parliament for the agreement to be ratified.

Parliament’s ratification is the last legislative step for the intergovernmental agreement to become formally enacted in Russia, paving the way for state gas giant Gazprom and CNPC to proceed with surveying and preparatory works ahead of construction in closely guarded border areas in Russia and China.

The agreement promises to temporarily simplify border crossing controls and customs procedures to allow the movement of personnel, pipelay equipment and supporting supplies necessary to build the connecting segment.

On Saturday, the lower chamber of the Russian Duma disclosed it had received the draft law. However, no date for hearing it has been announced.

Gazprom signed a commercial gas supply contract with China National Petroleum Corporation in February last year, three weeks before the beginning of the Russian invasion in Ukraine.

Informally known as Sila Sibiri 3, the gas pipeline will have an annual throughput capacity of 10 billion cubic metres of gas.

Soon after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February last year and the introduction of international sanctions against Russia and its corporations, Gazprom started to reduce its pipeline gas supplies to Europe.

Russian deliveries are now running at about 25% of the pre-war level, and may fall further later this year as European Union states reportedly discuss banning Russian pipeline gas purchases as part of an 11th round of sanctions.

Gazprom also said in a statement last week that preparations and design work for a Mongolian transit segment to serve a second Russian gas pipeline to China are “proceeding across to the schedule and are closing to their final point”.

The statement came after a Gazprom’s delegation headed by company deputy executive chairman Vitaly Markelov visited the Mongolian capital, Ulan-Bator, for talks.

This pipeline, known as Sila Sibiri 2, is planned to carry up to 50 Bcm of Russian gas from West Siberia to China.

However, Gazprom and CNPC has yet to sign a commercial gas supply agreement to underpin the project.

Gazprom and CNPC already operate the Sila Sibiri 1 pipeline, which supplies gas to China from the Chayanda and Kovykta fields in East Siberia.