Russia, China moving towards strategic energy alliance - Putin

MOSCOW, September 1. /TASS/. Moscow and Beijing are moving towards the formation of a strategic energy alliance, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. "Our countries are consistently moving towards the creation of a strategic energy alliance that, I am sure, will play a significant role in international economic relations," Putin said in an interview with TASS and Xinhua news agencies. "In 2014, we made a real breakthrough in gas industry," Putin said. "In May of last year, during my visit to China, we signed a contract for annual supplies to China of 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas." "The implementation of these large-scale projects is our absolute priority for the near future," he added. "We are also making significant progress in other areas of energy cooperation. We have built and began operating an oil pipeline from Russia to China, we signed agreements to increase oil shipments, created joint ventures to explore and produce oil in this country," the president said. "Chinese companies have joined gas projects on the Russian Arctic shelf and the Sakhalin shelf. There are good prospects for joint development of coalfields in the Far East," he said. Putin also praised the rapid development of bilateral nuclear energy cooperation. "The first and second power units of the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant, built by Rosatom, are demonstrating the best efficiency and security among all the nuclear power plants in China. We are currently involved in the construction of the third and fourth power units of the station, to be commissioned in 2018," he said. "As you can see, Russian-Chinese energy cooperation has great potential," Putin concluded. Read more