Aiqun Yu

Opinion | China is rightly dragging its feet on Russia’s Power of Siberia 2 pipeline

With China transitioning to renewable energy and strategically diversifying imports, projects like Power of Siberia 2 increasingly have no place in its future

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An employee checks a gas valve at the Atamanskaya compressor station, part of Gazprom’s Power Of Siberia gas pipeline in Russia’s Amur region on November 29, 2019. Photo: Reuters

Aiqun Yu

Published: 5:30pm, 22 May 2024Updated: 6:53pm, 22 May 2024

One official reason for celebration during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping was the long history of cooperation between the two nations.

Perhaps by leveraging nostalgia, Putin hoped to persuade Xi of the merits of Power of Siberia 2, the high-profile gas pipeline that would be the third in a series of such projects designed to deepen the links between the two countries’ energy systems.

But Beijing is right to remain sceptical of the project, which presents costly economic and political risks to China’s interests as it aims to maintain its energy security and follow through on its energy transition.

Earlier this year, construction started on the second pipeline, the China-Russia Far East Pipeline, which will complement the first, called the Power of Siberia. The Power of Siberia has yet to be completed and is not operating at full capacity.

If all proceeds as planned, the three pipelines will eventually deliver 98 billion cubic metres of gas every year to China, equivalent to Russia’s total gas exports via pipeline last year and a quarter of China’s total gas consumption that year.

But such a deepening of dependence on Russia would cut against China’s energy security strategy. China, which imports 42 per cent of its gas supply, has made efforts over the last two decades to diversify its energy imports to reduce its dependency on any one source.