Alexander Pasechnik, Head of the Analytical Department, National Energy Security Fund

Traditionally, in early September, Vladivostok is in the focus of attention of the business community: on September 3, the IX Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) started in the capital of the Far East (FEFD). As part of the four-day EEF program, more than 120 sessions and round tables were held, in which over 700 speakers took part. Its main theme was “Far East – 2030. Let’s join efforts, creating opportunities”.

 Within the framework of the EEF, meetings of representatives of the business circles of Russia and the Asia-Pacific countries were held: strengthening cooperation, implementation of joint projects and initiatives were discussed by participants in the business dialogues “Russia – ASEAN”, “Russia – India” and “Russia – China”.

The Forum was attended by over 7,000 people, including over 1,500 media representatives from 75 countries and territories, including Russia. The Forum was attended by delegates from 16 unfriendly countries and territories: Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, the Republic of Cyprus, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, the USA, France, Switzerland, Japan and the Cayman Islands. The largest delegations came from China, Malaysia, Bulgaria, Vietnam and Myanmar.

The venue signed 258 agreements for a record amount of almost 5.4 trillion rubles. “We have never had such a figure before – this is also important,” concluded Yuri Trutnev, Plenipotentiary Representative of the President in the Far Eastern Federal District. On September 6, the Roscongress Foundation clarified that the total value of the agreements executed at the venue (313 agreements were taken into account) is even higher – more than 5.5 trillion rubles.

The key event of the Forum was the plenary session (September 5), which was attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and Vice President of the People’s Republic of China Han Zheng. In his speech, the Russian leader touched upon the issues of further development of the Far East, strengthening cooperation with partner countries, and also assessed the situation in the global economy. “As you know, we have defined the development of the Far East as a national priority for the entire 21st century. The importance and correctness of this decision have been confirmed by life itself, the challenges that we have faced recently, and those objective trends, and this is the most important thing, that are gaining strength in the global economy, when the main business ties, trade routes and, in general, the entire vector of development are increasingly reoriented towards the East and the Global South. Our Far Eastern regions provide direct access to these growing, promising markets, allowing us to overcome the barriers that some Western elites are trying to impose on the entire world. And most importantly, as I have already said, our Far East is a huge space for the manifestation of business initiative, for launching complex projects and forming entire new industries,” said Vladimir Putin.

In addition, the head of Russia paid much attention to issues of international energy security, and not only of the Asia-Pacific countries. For example, he focused on the problem of prospects for gas transit of Russian gas in the context of the expiration of the transit agreement with Nezalezhnaya at the end of this year, which Naftogaz of Ukraine does not intend to extend. Vladimir Putin emphasized that Moscow has no fundamental refusal to supply gas via the GTSSU. Another thing is that this is the Kyiv authorities’ bet on breaking off cooperation with Gazprom – a politicized decision.

Gas transit via Nezalezhnaya may be terminated upon the expiration of the contract from the beginning of next year. But alternative supply schemes via the GTSSU are possible – without a direct contract between Gazprom and Naftogaz, but with the participation of European intermediaries.

In addition, V. Putin pointed out the “arrogance” of the EU in terms of efforts to avoid buying Russian gas whenever possible, which by the way is supplied to a number of countries in the Old World via the “Turkish Stream”. Moreover, as the Russian leader recalled, Germany has an excellent opportunity to receive “blue fuel” via the surviving thread of the “Nord Stream”, only Berlin’s “will” is needed, and Gazprom is ready to start pumping along the route almost immediately; the pipe’s capacity is impressive – 27.5 billion cubic meters per year.

Of course, the head of Russia paid attention to national logistics strategies – the Northern Sea Route (NSR) and the BAM. There is a prospect of switching to year-round navigation along the sea route due to climate trends and a large-scale plan for the development of the Russian icebreaker fleet. Vladimir Putin considers it necessary to completely switch BAM to electric traction. Loading these corridors is a prospect for coal, oil and gas raw materials and a wide range of its processing.

In the corporate field, Gazprom is at the forefront: on the second day of the forum, the company announced its intention to complete the unification of the Far Eastern Federal District gas systems in 2026. As Deputy Head of PJSC Vitaly Markelov noted, in January 2027, a gas pipeline will be built connecting the Russian Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok system with the Chinese system and gas will be supplied, accordingly, via the Far Eastern route. “A project is being implemented to connect the Power of Siberia and Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok, we plan to complete this project in 2026 and, accordingly, a unified gas supply system for Eastern Siberia and the Far East will be created, allowing us to expand the gasification capabilities of our regions in the Far East,” he said. In addition, from January 1, 2025, the Power of Siberia gas pipeline will reach its design capacity of 38 billion m³ per year, V. Markelov noted. Gazprom also plans to complete the fifth and sixth lines of the Amur Gas Processing Plant (AGPZ) in accordance with the project, he added.

At the end of August, Gazprom launched the fourth production line of the Amur Gas Processing Plant. This was reported by Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Management Board of the Russian holding, at a conference call dedicated to the Day of Oil and Gas Industry Workers. He noted that the concern is developing the gas processing segment in order to “provide the Russian economy with products that are in demand in many industries; industries for which the products of the PJSC are the basis of their further production cycles”.

The Amur Gas Processing Plant is located near the city of Svobodny in the Amur Region. It will become one of the largest natural gas processing plants in the world. The design capacity of the plant for raw material loading is 42 billion cubic meters per year (6 lines with 7 billion cubic meters of raw gas per year each). The commissioning of the plant’s lines is synchronized with the growth of gas transportation volumes via the Power of Siberia.