Putin unveils new gas deal with China's Xi as Moscow squares off with
West
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[February 04, 2022]
By Vladimir Soldatkin and Chen Aizhu
MOSCOW/SINGAPORE (Reuters) -President
Vladimir Putin unveiled a new Russian gas deal with China at a meeting
with President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Friday, promising to increase
Moscow's far east exports at a time when Putin is at odds with European
customers over Ukraine.
Russia, already Beijing's No. 3 gas supplier, has been strengthening
ties with China, the world's biggest energy consumer, reducing its
dependence on its traditional European energy customers.
"Our oilmen have prepared very good new solutions on hydrocarbon
supplies to the People's Republic of China," Putin said in a meeting
with Xi to discuss closer cooperation.
"And a step forward was made in the gas industry, I mean a new contract
on supplying 10 billion cubic metres (bcm) per year to China from
Russia's Far East," said Putin, who was in Beijing to attend the Winter
Olympics.
Putin has accused the United States of stoking tensions over Russia's
neighbour Ukraine, which seeks NATO membership. More than 100,000
Russian troops have amassed near the border with Ukraine. Western
countries accuse Moscow of planning an invasion, which it denies.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Feb/04/images/ads/current/guzzardos_lda_LUAL_2017.png)
Russia is Europe's biggest provider of natural gas, and Western
countries are worried that already strained supplies could be
interrupted in the event of a conflict. However, the new deal with
Beijing would not let Moscow divert gas otherwise bound for Europe, as
it involved gas from the Pacific island of Sakhalin, unconnected to
Russia's European pipeline network.
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![](../images/020421pics/news_r67.jpg)
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Chinese
President Xi Jinping in Beijing, China February 4, 2022.
Sputnik/Aleksey Druzhinin/Kremlin via REUTERS
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Feb/04/images/ads/current/Rolfs_lda_LUAL_2017.png) Russian gas giant Gazprom said in a
statement that it plans to increase gas exports to China to 48
billion cubic metres a year, including via the newly agreed pipeline
which will deliver 10 bcm annually from Russia's Far East.
Under previous plans, Russia aimed to supply China with 38 bcm by
2025. The announcement did not specify when it would reach the new
48 bcm target.
An industry source told Reuters earlier on Friday that Gazprom,
which has a monopoly on Russian gas exports by pipeline, had agreed
a 30-year contract with China's CNPC, with the first gas to flow
through the new pipeline in two or three years.
POWER OF SIBERIA
Russia now sends gas to China via its Power of Siberia pipeline,
which began pumping supplies in 2019, and by shipping liquefied
natural gas (LNG). It exported 16.5 billion cubic metres (bcm) of
gas to China in 2021, including 10.5 bcm via the Power of Siberia
pipeline, a network that is also separate from the pipelines that
send gas to Europe.
Putin is accompanied by several Russian officials and business
executives, including Igor Sechin, head of oil giant Rosneft. Alexei
Miller, the head of Gazprom is not in the delegation.
Rosneft and CNPC signed a deal on supplying 100 million tonnes of
oil to China through Kazakhstan for 10 years, the Russian company
said, effectively prolonging the existing deal.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin and Oksana Kobzeva in Moscow,
additional reporting by Chen Aizhu in Singapore; Editing by
Christian Schmollinger and Edmund Blair)
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