The ‘new’ arrangements in Russian-Chinese energy cooperation

On 9 November 2014, during President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Beijing (one day ahead of the APEC summit), another package of Russian-Chinese agreements regarding the energy sector was signed. This included: agreements envisaging the annual supplies of 30 billion m3 of natural gas from Russia to China along the so-called ‘western route’ (the Altai project; it provides for gas supplies from Western Siberia to north-western China) and an agreement under which China’s CNPC acquired a 10% share in the Vankor field (Krasnoyarsk Krai) owned by Rosneft. Gazprom’s CEO announced that his company would not receive the previously negotiated Chinese loan of US$25 billion for the construction of the Power of Siberia pipeline (Irkutsk Oblast–Yakutia–Khabarovsk–Vladivostok). In turn, Chinese banks have expressed they are prepared to grant loans for the Yamal-LNG project (at least US$10 billion).