China and Russia sign 30 year gas deal

China's President Xi Jinping and Russia's president Vladimir Putin witnessed the signing of a long-delayed $400 billion natural gas deal on Wednesday - after more than ten years of negotiations - at the end of Putin's two-day visit to Shanghai.

The agreement, which involves Russia's top natural gas producer, Gazprom OAO, and China National Petroleum Corp, will supply China with 38 billion cubic meters of gas annually from the eastern gas pipeline for 30 years, starting 2018.

The two sides managed to reach a last-minute agreement on the price - which was the major obstacle for the completion of the deal.

The successful completion of the deal is based on Russia's strong willingness to find new energy buyers outside of Europe, and also on China's rapidly growing demand for natural gas during the country's energy structure transformation, said Sun Yongxiang, a professor at the Euro-Asian Social Development Research Institute of the State Council's Development Research Center.

dujuan@chinadaily.com.cn