The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said he looked forward to the day when Russian natural gas would be exported to China in large quantities, as cooperation between the two countries would alter the international oil market.

On the same day, the First Financial Daily in Shanghai quoted Cheng Guoping, a Chinese vice foreign minister, as saying that Vice Premier Li Keqiang had called for cooperation between China and Russia across the complete value chain of the petroleum industry during a visit to Russia in April. Cheng said Putin responded positively to Li's idea.

During a Sino-Russian energy meeting on June 1, Wang Qishan, another Chinese vice premier, suggested China partner with Russia in developing oil resources and that Russia should invest in refineries in China.

China National Petroleum Corporation and Russian oil company Rosneft set up a joint venture in Tianjin in September 2010, with a capacity for processing 13 million tons of crude oil a year.

Pang Changwei, a professor at China University of Petroleum in Beijing, also urged Russia and China to collaborate in building a pipeline network in northeast Asia which would cover China, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea and Japan.

However, Pang said a problem with the partnership has been that the price asked by Russia for its natural gas was US$100 per cubic kilometer more than China was willing to pay. He suggested the two countries cooperate in developing the natural gas market in China's north and northeast, so that such differences could be resolved in five years.

Please contact us in case of Copyright Infringement of the photo sourced from the internet, we will remove it within 24 hours.