A man walks past pipelines in a section of the China-Russia east-route natural gas pipeline in Heihe, Northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province. The pipeline became operational Monday, marking the start of a new era in the two countries’ energy cooperation. It is scheduled to provide China with 5 billion cubic meters of Russian gas in 2020 and the amount is expected to increase to 38 billion cubic meters annually from 2024, under a 30-year contract worth US$400 billion signed between the China National Petroleum Corp. and Russian gas giant Gazprom in 2014. The cross-border gas pipeline has a 3,000-km section in Russia and a 5,111-km stretch in China.

Xinhua