On the agenda at this week’s Russia-China summit between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping is the long-delayed Power of Siberia 2 (POS-2) project, a proposed 2,600km (1,616-mile) natural gas pipeline that would carry Russian gas from western Siberia through Mongolia to China.On Wednesday, the two countries said they had reached an understanding about the route and construction of the pipeline, but other details have yet to be negotiated.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listOnce built, the pipeline is expected to have a capacity of 50 billion cubic metres (1.77 trillion cubic feet) per year, equivalent to about 525 terawatt-hours of energy – nearly twice the United Kingdom’s annual electricity consumption.The pipeline would be nearly as large as Nord Stream 1, one of Russia’s most important former gas export routes to Europe, which had a design capacity of 55 billion cubic metres (1.94 trillion cubic feet) per year.Analysts said Russia wants to build the pipeline to replace revenue lost since European countries slashed their gas imports from Russia after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.For China, pipeline gas from Russia could offer a more secure alternative to imported liquefied natural gas (LNG), which is cooled into liquid form and transported by ship.Most of China’s LNG imports must be shipped through strategic chokepoints, such as the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca.The new pipeline may sound like a win-win, but analysts said significant …
