The two presidents signed a large package of documents,
including those in the oil and gas industry, in Moscow.
“It became
possible owing to the use of the mechanism that we invented with
the leader of the People’s Republic of China a year ago,” Medvedev
said.
Dmitry Medvedev and Hu Jintao conducted negotiations about the
shipments of Russia’s natural gas to China. The presidents signed
the Memorandum About Mutual Understanding on the Cooperation in
the Field of Natural Gas.”
It is an open secret that China suffers from the shortage of
natural gas. The talks between the two countries about the
deliveries of Russian gas to China last for several years already.
Moscow was not satisfied with the conditions, which Beijing
proposed for cooperation: the prices in question are a lot lower
than those, which Russia has with its gas contracts in Europe.
If China is willing to purchase large quantities of Russian gas,
it will be necessary to build a new gas pipeline. A senior
official of Russia’s gas monopolist, Gazprom, said that it did not
go about the deliveries of natural gas to China in 2011. The two
countries still negotiate the prices.
Russia currently runs the Eastern Gas Program in the Far East and
in Siberia. The program was developed with an intention to supply
oil and gas to the Asian-Pacific region, including China , RIA
Novosti news agency reports.
Russia and China are working on a possibility to use rubles and
yuans in their mutual settlements, Vice Prime Minister of the
Russian government, Igor Sechin said. |