Home / Armenia / Russia Expanding Energy Ties with China

Russia Expanding Energy Ties with China

Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil producer, and China National Petroleum Corp. may build a refinery in China within two years, RIA Novosti reported, citing Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, Bloomberg reports.

Resources-rich Russia is expanding energy ties with China that include jointly building refineries and pipelines to deliver oil and gas to the world’s biggest energy consumer. CNPC, China’s biggest oil company, and Rosneft agreed to build a refinery in Tianjin capable of processing 10 million metric tons of crude a year, state-run Xinhua News Agency reported in 2007.

Sechin is due to attend a foundation-laying ceremony for the Rosneft-CNPC joint venture refinery today, China Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said last week. Russian companies will supply 70 percent of crude processed at the plant at market prices, RIA Novosti reported last month.

Russia and China will agree on the price of natural gas supplies to the Asian nation in the first half of 2011 and deliveries may start in 2015, RIA reported today, citing Sechin. Supply terms may be agreed this month, it said.

Gazprom, the Russian gas export monopoly, is seeking to agree on prices and supply terms with China by mid-2011, allowing for first deliveries four years later, the company’s Deputy CEO Alexander Medvedev said in June. Gazprom originally targeted first shipments in 2011.

The “basic” terms for the Russian gas supply will be agreed during President Medvedev’s visit next week, RIA reported today, citing Gazprom’s Deputy CEO.

“We plan to sign off on the basic conditions for deliveries,” RIA cited Gazprom’s Medvedev as saying, adding that these would include “volumes, extraction points and take- or-pay terms.”

Supplies when they start in 2015 may be as much as 30 billion cubic meters, RIA reported.