08-10-08 Russia will delay the construction of proposed gas pipeline to China due to competition from other gas sources in the Chinese market.
The Altai gas pipeline project, designed to ship 30 bn cm of natural gas per year from western Siberia to China, was excluded from Russia's recently released blueprint for gas industry development through 2030.

China and Russia signed a memorandum on Russian gas shipments to China in 2006, but they have been unable to reach an agreement on pricing and other matters since then. China initially hoped to begin receiving natural gas from Russia in 2011.
The new blueprint says gas from the proposed Altai pipeline would be less competitive in the Chinese market than gas from Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan has already agreed to supply China with 30 bn cm of gas per year. The central Asian nation's gas is much cheaper due to lower exploration costs and shorter pipeline distance.

Construction of the central Asian pipeline is already under way. It will stretch more than 1,800 km from Turkmenistan across Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to China's north-western Xinjiang region.
A first section, including a compressor station, is to be completed by the end of 2009 and a second section should be finished by the end of 2011.