According to a new release from construction company PipeChina, the East Route natural gas pipeline leading from Russia to China has seen a critical leg of its construction completed.

The section will allow gas transit from Russia directly into China’s economically vital city of Shanghai, in the east.

Entering China through the border city of Heihe in northeastern Heilongjiang Province, the 5,111 km cross-border pipeline will transit nine provincial regions. It will supply natural gas to these regions all along the route, which will include Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin.

The pipeline is an element of the East Route project, which supplies natural gas from the 3,000 km Power of Siberia pipeline in Russia.

Launched in December of 2019, the East Route has become the first pipeline to supply Russian natural gas directly to China. Projected to be completed and operational by 2025, this “mega-project” will supply 38 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas per year to China, beginning in 2024. It is estimated that the predicted deliveries will reduce China’s carbon dioxide emissions by 164 million tons per year.

The company states this energy supply will help to boost China’s energy security as well as the economic development of the eastern regions of the Chinese mainland.

The project is one element of a $400 billion, 30-year agreement inked in May of 2014, between China National Petroleum Corporation, and Russia’s state energy giant Gazprom.

Another joint-project between the two companies is being worked on in the west, which involves the construction of a pipeline into China which passes through Mongolia, It is estimated that pipeline will have a maximum capacity of up to 50 billion cubic meters of gas per year when it becomes operational.