China and Russia signed a new gas agreement

Russia and China signed a framework agreement that provides for additional supplies of 30 billion cubic meters of gas per year to China via the western Altai route. The latest agreement between Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) was signed after a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Beijing.

China will become the largest buyer of natural gas for Russia, with a volume of 68 billion cubic meters per year. Russia has also allowed Chinese companies to invest in its domestic mining sector. The new agreement was signed a few months after the two companies signed a landmark deal for Gazprom in May to supply up to 38 billion cubic meters of gas a year from Eastern Siberia to China via a future pipeline, starting back in 2018. The deal is designed for a 30-year period. term and is estimated at 400 billion dollars.

The main gas pipeline Power of Siberia will become the largest project in Russia after the construction of the BAM. Gazprom has assured that fabrication of metal structures and steel pipes will be entrusted exclusively to Russian companies that have already signed preliminary price agreements with the gas monopoly.

In the first half of this year, bilateral Sino-Russian trade increased 3.5 percent from a year earlier to $ 59.1 billion, and both sides agreed to increase this to $ 200 billion a year by 2020. China is Russia's second largest trading partner at present, according to a CNPC report.

Without specifying the volume of investments, CNPC says Rosneft has allowed the Chinese company to acquire a stake in the Vankor field in Eastern Siberia, which is estimated to have reserves of 52 million tons of oil and 95 billion cubic meters of gas.