Russia's Putin Eyes Gas Deal on Visit to China

Russia and China have marked "substantial progress" in talks over a deal which would secure one-fourth of China's gas supplies, Kremlin officials told Russian media.

Negotiations come as Russian President Vladimir Putin is on a visit to China for an international forum, but is also meeting Xi Jingping and explore ways to boost cooperation.

Putin is to attend the Conference of Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), in which delegations from nearly 40 countries and organizations will take part. The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will also be at the forum. 

Putin and Xi are also to announce the start of a joint naval exercise. Arms deals and ways to boost other aspects of commercial relations are reported to be on the agenda of their talks.

A long-negotiated gas agreement will however top their meeting. During his visit to Beijing, President Putin will be eyeing a long-term gas deal which could pump 1.14 trillion cubic meters of gas into China and USD 400 B into Russia over the next thirty years.

The Chinese National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) earlier stated it had agreed "in principle" to sign a gas deal with the Russian energy giant.

Pricing still seems to be a contentious issue, even though a Gazprom source reportedly told the Russian daily Izvestiya there was already a rough agreement between the two countries.

Izvestiya argues that the financial side of the matter will be smoothed out during Tuesday's talks between the two Presidents in Beijing.

Gazprom's chief Alexei Miller earlier said for Russia's Rossiya 24 TV channel that the company was "one digit away" from finalizing the three-decade deal for yearly 38 bcm deliveries to China from the east of...