Today's signing ceremony was within the programme of President Vladimir Putin's official visit to China, the Gasprom says in a press release.
As the agreement has it, further team efforts will focus on analyses and implementation of Gasprom blueprints for Russian natural gas exports to the CNPC. The blueprints vouch for safe and steady long-term supplies. To launch exports as soon as possible, the Parties will practically appraise their organisation, and agree between themselves on deadlines, amounts, supply/receipt points, price formation, and other terms.
The agreement also envisages teamwork on oil and gas prospecting, drilling, piping and sales, development of Chinese-based gas transportation and distribution networks, construction and exploitation of underground gas-holders, and other joint projects-some of them based in third countries.
The agreement poses new goals to the Gasprom Chinese office for links with the CNPC, China's biggest oil-and-gas company, Vladislav Baryshnikov, chief of the Gasprom representation in China, said to Novosti.
The office will also go on blueprinting other ambitious Chinese-based projects. They concern, in particular, gas sales and distribution, equipment supplies for gas headers and stations, and exports of petrochemical and gas chemical produce.
The partners will establish a joint coordination committee to implement the agreement. The Gasprom office in China will arrange routine contacts with the CNPC.
China's largest government oil-and-gas company, the CNPC is among the world's leading integrated oil and gas extractors. Established in 1998 on the basis of China's disbanded Ministry of Petroleum Industry, it is a major crude petroleum producer and distributor. It retains domination in national oil and gas drilling, procession and supplies. Independently and through affiliates, the corporation accounts for 79 per cent of domestic petroleum market supplies. It controls 95 per cent of the Chinese gas market and 40 per cent of the petroleum product market, and is involved in 27 overseas projects.
Coal presently dominates Chinese fuel and power industry, and natural gas accounts for a token 2 per cent of national fuel consumption. Gas imports and consumption, however, are expected to skyrocket within the years to come. China produced approximately 35 billion cubic metres of natural gas, 2003.
