|
|
Russia Plans Gas Line to Feed China
But Fate Still Unsettled For Desired Crude Pipeline
By Peter S. Goodman and Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 22, 2006; Page D01
BEIJING, March 21 -- Russia on Tuesday promised to send China significant shipments of energy to fuel its ceaseless development, pledging to erect a pipeline that will deliver natural gas from Siberia within the next five years.
The announcement came during a two-day trip to China by Russian President Vladimir Putin as he visits his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao. The mission is designed to showcase deepening political, military and economic relations between the former Cold War superpower adversaries.
However, the news omitted mention of a project at the center of Beijing's energy objectives -- another pipeline that would bring crude oil from fields in Siberia.
Nearly three years ago, China declared it had that project in hand, announcing the signing of a $150 billion deal with Russia. The venture was to be a linchpin in Beijing's aim to diversify its imports away from the volatile Middle East, the source of more than half of China's overseas purchases. The 2,500-mile Russian oil pipeline was to supply as much as one-third of China's imports by 2030.
But in the years since, complications have plagued the deal, and China's regional rival, Japan, has appeared to seize the project. Tokyo has pledged at least $6 billion toward the expansion of Russia's oil fields and the development of the pipeline if Russia would run it to the Pacific port of Nakhodka, where Japanese tankers could come and carry much of it away.
Russian officials have sent confusing signals about the ultimate fate of the oil project in recent months. Beijing has sought to persuade Moscow to at least build a spur that would carry some oil south into China.
On Tuesday, Russia's minister of industry and energy, Viktor Khristenko, added to the uncertainty, saying his government will conduct a project feasibility study and only then decide how and when to proceed.
\"There can be no talk of 'when' until a feasibility study is completed,\" he told reporters.
Meanwhile, Japan's vice trade minister, Hideji Sugiyama, said Tuesday that Putin had given assurances during recent talks in Moscow that the oil pipeline eventually would be built to the Pacific coast, Bloomberg News reported.
[Putin said Wednesday that there is \"no doubt\" that a pipeline carrying oil from Siberia to China will be built, but he offered no details on the routing or the timing, Bloomberg reported. Analysts have questioned whether enough oil exists in Siberian fields to satisfy both Japanese and Chinese demands, so the issue of what gets built first is key.]
Whatever the fate of the oil pipeline, Russia said it would give China some relief from energy shortages with the gas project. Putin said the planned pipeline would supply as much as 2.8 trillion cubic feet of gas per year, though he did not specify a route or cost. Russia's Interfax news agency pegged the cost at about $10 billion, citing an unnamed official in the Russian delegation.
Officials with Russia's state-owned gas company, OAO Gazprom, said the two countries would join forces on the project. \"We are talking about not only gas deliveries but joint activities in exploration and production,\" said the company's chief executive, Alexei Miller.
The announcement came as Putin met with Hu for the fifth time in less than a year, the latest sign of growing trade ties between the two enormous countries, once bitter enemies.
The meeting was cast as the formal start of the Year of Russia in China -- celebrated with festivals and goodwill programs -- marking the growth of cooperation since settlement of the last significant Sino-Russian border dispute in late 2004. Russia has announced plans to reciprocate with the Year of China in Russia in 2007.
In a meeting with Hu at the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square, Putin called the observances \"a large-scale, multifaceted, unprecedented project\" that demonstrates the importance both nations attach to their relations.
Trade between the two powers, which reached nearly $30 billion in 2005, is expected to double before 2010. Much of the total was weapons; the Chinese military has become the leading customer for Russia's defense industry, buying advanced warplanes, warships and missile systems.
As China has embraced the automobile and erected factories along the length of its coastline, it has blossomed into the world's second-largest consumer of energy, trailing only the United States. China's oil consumption will grow by nearly 6 percent this year to nearly 7 million barrels per day, according to the International Energy Agency. By comparison, the United States consumes nearly 21 million barrels per day.
Securing future energy supplies has become a key aim of China's foreign policy.
In recent years, China's state energy firms have deployed around the globe, from Indonesia to Angola to Venezuela, to lock up new sources of energy -- a mission that has brought China into conflict with the United States and Europe on security issues.
China is pressing to complete a $100 billion energy agreement with Iran. The deal would allow the state-owned China Petrochemical Corp. to develop the Yadavaran oil field in southern Iran. The talks are taking place as Washington seeks to isolate Iran and halt its nuclear development plans.
China National Petroleum Corp., the country's biggest state energy firm, is the single largest shareholder in a government-led oil consortium in Sudan, a country accused by the United States of committing genocide in its western region of Darfur.
China has been particularly keen to secure supplies present in its energy-rich neighbors -- Russia and Kazakhstan -- with the aim of reducing its reliance on shipping lanes policed by the United States.
Last October, China National Petroleum completed its $4.18 billion purchase of PetroKazakhstan Inc., which controls about 12 percent of Kazakhstan's oil output.
[And on Wednesday, the chief executive of Russia's OAO Rosneft oil company said his firm plans joint ventures with China National Petroleum, the Associated Press reported. Sergei Bogdanchikov said the companies would work together to extract and refine Russian oil, as well as operate filling stations, the AP reported.]
But China's primary target -- Russia's Siberian oil -- remains elusive and the object of continued jockeying between Asia's great powers. |
|
发表于 2006-4-2 17:34:42
