Business | General
China and Russia agree to boost energy alliance
China and Russia agreed to strengthen a strategic partnership by expanding their co-operation to projects including oil trade, pipeline constructions, explorations and nuclear power.
- Bloomberg
- Published: 00:04 July 29, 2008
Beijing: China and Russia agreed to strengthen a strategic partnership by expanding their co-operation to projects including oil trade, pipeline constructions, explorations and nuclear power.
"The first round of talks have achieved some positive results," the official Xinhua News Agency quoted Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Qishang as saying during his meeting with visiting Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin yesterday.
Energy cooperation plays an important role in the strategic relationship between the two countries, the report said.
Premier Wen Jiabao, who also met with Sechin, is boosting ties with China's oil-rich neighbour to meet the energy needs of an economy that expanded 10.4 per cent in the first six months.
China and Russia are delaying pipeline projects to deliver crude oil and natural gas to the world's second-biggest energy consumer because the countries failed to reach an agreement on fuel prices, Xia Yishan, an adviser to the Chinese government on Russia-China pipeline projects said in December.
Terms and conditions
Russia's oil exports to China fell after the countries couldn't agree on expanding shipments because of rising crude oil costs, Sergey Tsyplakov, Russia's government trade representative in China, said November 13. Future shipments will depend on price and transportation costs, he said.
Gazprom, Russia's natural gas export monopoly, is seeking "considerably higher" prices for the fuel than China is willing to pay, Alexey Mastepanov, an adviser to the company's deputy chairman said on December 6. Gazprom is keeping to an original proposal to supply 68 billion cubic metres of gas a year to China through two pipelines, Mastepanov said.
China National Petroleum Corp and Gazprom have agreed on the "principle" of prices, which is "on a market basis," Mastepanov said. The completion of talks depends not only on prices, but on other "terms and conditions."
Atomstroyexport, Russia's state-run nuclear-reactor builder, is still in talks with China National Nuclear Corp to sell two more reactors to China, Yuri G. Ivanov, the company's China project manager, said in June.
The negotiations for the reactors, to be located in the eastern province of Jiangsu, have centred on pricing and technical issues, Ivanov said at the time.
China is turning to alternative sources to cut reliance on polluting coal, which generates almost 80 per cent of the electricity. The country's nuclear-power capacity will rise to at least 60 gigawatts by the end of the next decade, Wang Yonggan, secretary of the China Electricity Council, said last month.
Share this article
More from Business General
More from Business
Popular in Business
-
Budget travel
Airlines in the region
Take a pictorial look at some of the budget airlines in GCC
Business Editor's choice
-
It costs a million to raise a child
Generation Z doesn't leave home at 18, but stay with the parents until mid-20s
-
Investing in funds doesn't come cheap
Many people are unaware of the effect of different expenses on their returns
-
Firm turns televised events into marketing dream
Drops anchor in Dubai to sell world's richest yachting races
