The natural gas pipelines are expected to be in operation within five years. A Russian official said Moscow would, however, conduct a feasibility study for the oil pipeline. The announcements came after Putin and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, after they met for the fifth time in less than a year and pledged to promote political and trade ties. The gas pipeline network will deliver up to 2.8tr cuft/yr of gas to China annually, Putin told reporters. "Two routes have been determined – an eastern one and a western one," said Alexei Miller, chief executive of Gazprom. Miller said the eastern route would supply gas from eastern Siberia as well as fields off the Far East island of Sakhalin, while a western route would send gas from Russia's west Siberian fields. Observers had hoped for new information about the route of the proposed 4080-km long Siberian pipeline to the Pacific coast: both Japan and China have sought to secure a favourable routing that would benefit them.