MOSCOW, October 22 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev oversaw a series of energy agreements Tuesday during the first day of a two-day visit to natural resource-hungry China.
In particular, Russia and China appeared to be closing in on a multi-billion dollar natural gas supply deal.
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in Beijing that state-owned Gazprom had agreed on a pricing formula with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), resolving the key sticking point in over a decade of negotiations, Prime financial news service reported. Both sides are aiming to sign the contract by the end of the year.
“These agreements that we are on the way to reaching, in particular concerning gas, will soon become [official] documents,” Medvedev told a press conference in the Chinese capital.
Other deals announced in Beijing involved both state-owned oil giant Rosneft, which has ramped up its cooperation with Chinese companies in recent months, and fast-growing natural gas producer Novatek.
Rosneft signed an agreement with China’s largest state refiner Sinopec to supply 10 million tons of oil a year for a decade, Rosneft head Igor Sechin said, Prime reported.
Novatek said in a press release that it had reached a 15-year supply agreement with CNPC to provide Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) produced at its Arctic Yamal peninsula project.
Last month, China overtook the United States as the world’s largest net importer of oil, and Russia has been looking to increase supplies to its energy-hungry neighbor.
Rosneft agreed with CNPC earlier this year to double oil supplies to China from the current 300,000 barrels per day in a deal that President Vladimir Putin said would be worth $60 billion. Last week CNPC signed an agreement with Rosneft to take a rare equity stake in East Siberian oil and gas deposits.
Medvedev met with his counterpart Li Keqiang on Tuesday as part of his two-day trip to China. He is also due to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
