ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- Natural gas pipeline agreements made at the G20 summit in St. Petersburg show China and Russia are serious about their cooperation, Gazprom said.
Alexei Miller, the top executive at Russian energy company Gazprom, met with China National Petroleum Corp. Chairman Zhou Jiping on the sidelines of a meeting of the Group of Twenty finance ministers and central bank governors in St. Petersburg.
Gazprom said both sides signed off on the terms and conditions of Russian natural gas supplies via pipeline deliveries.
"Both parties stressed the long-term strategic nature of our partnership," Miller said in a statement Thursday. "The fact that the major terms and conditions were signed during the G20 summit indicates the parties' aspiration to successfully end the negotiations and sign the contract before the end of 2013."
Gazprom said both sides in 2009 agreed to a framework agreement for the eventual delivery of up to 2.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas per year for the Chinese market.
The announcement follows a report in the Russian-language business daily Vedomosti that China's ties to Russian gas were overshadowed by similar arrangement with Turkmenistan.
China's official Xinhua News Agency this week reported China clinched a deal tied to the South Yolotan natural gas field in Turkmenistan, one of the largest in the world with an estimated 700 trillion cubic feet in natural gas reserves.
