Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 1 -- Russia will export at least 15 million tonnes of crude oil to China by rail in 2006, according to an agreement signed on Nov. 1 by Russian and Chinese deputy prime ministers, Aleksandr Zhukov and Wu Yi.
The agreement, the final protocol of the ninth meeting of the Russian-Chinese commission for regular meetings of heads of government, said relevant departments and enterprises of the two countries will take measures to expand the scope of railway deliveries of oil from Russia to China.
Zukhov said, however, that Russia does not plan to sign a separate intergovernmental agreement with China to set out details for the construction of an oil pipeline to replace the rail link from the Russian town of Skovorodino to the Chinese border.
"China suggests we should support this project by an intergovernmental agreement, but in our view there is no need in this since all the issues within the project should be discussed and settled by the two countries' companies," Zhukov said after the Nov 1 meeting.
He said that preliminary agreement already had been reached between Russia's state-run pipeline company Transneft and the Chinese national oil and gas corporation on studying the issue of building an oil pipeline from Skovorodino to the Chinese border.
The final protocol of the Russian-Chinese commission, however, did support greater cooperation between the two countries' companies in the sphere of natural gas and a study of mutually profitable projects of gas deliveries from Russia to China, including gas pipelines.
In October, Russian Railways Co. said Russia exported 5.7 million tonnes of crude oil to China via railway in the first three quarters of 2005, an increase of 22% over the same period in 2004 (OGJ Online, Oct. 18, 2005).
Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].
