Diversification of the flows

Alexey Gromov, Principal Director on Energy studies at the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to Kommersant FM on the prospects for the Power of Siberia 2 project amid another escalation of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East:

"Today we see that the supply of liquefied natural gas from the Middle East is also subject to geopolitical uncertainty and additional risks. In addition, the United States and China continue to clash on the level of tariff wars.

Beijing has suspended supplies of liquefied natural gas from America since the beginning of spring, and in this situation, the reliability of gas supply is coming to the fore. And, of course, pipeline supplies look preferable to LNG imports from unstable regions. I think that China can now make a strategic decision to launch the construction of the Power of Siberia-2 project. It seems to me that the positions of the parties should be getting closer now. Up until 2025, Russia was more interested in the implementation of this project than the PRC. Now the situation has changed, to put it mildly, so Beijing also has a serious interest in the implementation of this project. Now the fundamental question is whether the parties will be able to reach an agreement. But I emphasize that both China and the Russian Federation, in my opinion, are almost equally interested in the implementation of this project. We currently have the Power of Siberia-1 project, which supplies gas from fields in the east, and the fields in Western Siberia were focused on gas supplies to Europe. Now this market is closed to us, and the gas capacities are actually idle. Of course, redirecting such significant volumes of gas to China would be an important step in the development of the Russian gas industry. The fundamental issue is the economics of these supplies."