You're reading: Russia’s Gazprom plans new Pacific gas pipeline

MOSCOW — Russia's President Vladimir Putin has given his blessing to a plan to invest tens of billions of dollars to tap a new natural gas field in Siberia and build a new pipeline for exports to Asia.

Putin met Monday with
Alexei Miller, the CEO of state-controlled natural gas giant Gazprom,
who briefed him on prospects of tapping the giant Chaynda deposit in the
Yakutia region. Miller said the field is estimated to hold 1.2 trillion
cubic meters of gas.

He said Gazprom plans to build a 3,200-kilometer (2,000-mile) pipeline linking the field with Russia’s
Pacific port of Vladivostok. Miller said Gazprom would need to invest
430 billion rubles ($13.7 billion) to develop the field and 770 billion
rubles ($24.4 billion) to build the pipeline by 2017.