Gazprom plans to begin gas deliveries to China in 2015 - source (repeat)
Moscow. February 11. INTERFAX - Russia's Gazprom could sign a contract for gas deliveries to China mid-2011, an attendee at a Gazprom investors meeting told Interfax.
Deliveries via the western corridor through the Altai region are expected to begin in 2015, while the eastern corridor, a spur of the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline, will start deliveries after 2017, he said.
Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) signed a new gas delivery contract during President Dmitry Medvedev's visit to China in September, which spelled out delivery routes, gas specifications and gas pipeline terminals, among other conditions.
CNPC and Gazprom have yet to agree on the price of gas.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in October 2009 that Gazprom and CNPC had agreed to tie the price of the deliveries to the price of a basket of oil products in Asia.
Russia is expected to deliver 68 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas annually to China through the two routes: 30 bcm a year by the western route and 38 bcm a year by the eastern route.