With the commissioning of the Tai'an-Taixing section, the eastern route of the China-Russia natural gas pipeline completed construction on Wednesday, which will allow natural gas from Russia to cross nine provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions to reach Shanghai, ensuring energy supplies for China's eastern regions.

Experts said the project's completion marks a new milestone in China-Russia energy cooperation, and the two countries will forge an even closer partnership to ensure energy security.

The Tai'an-Taixing section is 750 kilometers long with a designed annual gas transmission volume of 18.9 billion cubic meters. When put into operation, the section can link up with China's West-to-East Gas Pipeline in Taixing, Jiangsu province, and increase the supply capacity of natural gas in the Yangtze River Delta region by about 50 million cubic meters per day.

China Oil & Gas Pipeline Network Corp, also known as PipeChina, which built the project, said the completion of the eastern route will continue to improve the energy supply capacity of the northeastern region.

The route will also diversify energy supply channels of the Bohai Economic Rim area, alleviating the region's dependence on imported liquefied natural gas, and reduce the cost of gas consumption in the area.

Meanwhile, through the connection with China's West-to-East Gas Pipeline, gas supplies to the Yangtze River Delta will form a four-way pattern from the east, west, south and north, which will effectively improve transportation ability of the natural source, PipeChina said.

Duan Zhaofang, director of the natural gas market research department at the Economics and Technology Research Institute, which operates under the aegis of China National Petroleum Corp, said the completion of the eastern route will help ensure natural gas supply to provinces alongside the route, especially those with a big need for energy, like Shandong and Jiangsu provinces.

Duan also said that by increasing clean energy supplies, the route will help optimize the energy consumption structure, promote the green transformation of the energy industry and help achieve China's green goals.

Li Ziyue, an analyst with BloombergNEF, shared similar views, adding the commissioning of the Tai'an-Taixing section connects Russian gas to Jiangsu province, China's industrial heartland. This will add another gas source to the gas consumption center in eastern China.

When the line reaches Shanghai, it will further promote energy transition and reduce carbon emissions.

With a total length of 5,111 km, the eastern route has transported over 28 bcm of natural gas so far. By 2025, it will supply 38 bcm of natural gas per year to regions like the three provinces in Northeast China, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the Yangtze River Delta area, which will help reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 164 million metric tons and sulfur dioxide emissions by 1.82 million tons per year.

"The route is the first gas pipeline between the two countries. More pipelines are expected to be commissioned as China and Russia deepen energy cooperation on the Power of Siberia 2 Pipeline under negotiation and other projects," Li said.

According to the General Administration of Customs, Russia continued to be China's largest source of energy imports last year.

China's energy imports from Russia reached 334.29 billion yuan ($46.62 billion) in 2021, up 47.4 percent year-on-year, accounting for 65.3 percent of the total value of China's imports from Russia in the same period.