China, Russia work on building energy cooperation partnership

China will exert consistent and unswerving efforts to establish a strategic partnership of energy cooperation with Russia as agreed by the heads of state of the two countries, Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli said here Saturday.

Zhang made the remarks as he co-chaired the 11th meeting of the China-Russia Energy Cooperation Committee with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich in Moscow.

During the meeting, the two sides had an in-depth exchange of views on cooperation in the fields of natural gas, oil, coal, electricity, nuclear energy and renewable energy.

Zhang said the successful meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Shanghai in May this year helped make breakthroughs on the eastern route of the China-Russia natural gas pipelines and other large-scale joint projects of strategic significance.

He said the breakthroughs has propelled the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination into a new era of development.

Zhang said the meeting of the China-Russia Energy Cooperation Committee is aimed to further implement the important consensus reached by the presidents of the two countries and carry out all-round, in-depth discussions on strengthening bilateral energy cooperation. He said the committee meeting will also make preparations for the October meeting between the heads of government of the two countries.

China and Russia have achieved rich fruits of energy cooperation in the fields of oil, natural gas, nuclear energy, coal and electricity, Zhang noted.

He said the fruitful energy cooperation has helped lift the whole level of practical cooperation between the two countries.

In 2013, China imported 24.35 million tons of crude oil, 27.28 million tons of coal and 3.5 billion kwh of power from Russia, according to official statistics.

The first two reactors of the Tianwan nuclear power plant in east China's Jiangsu Province, a major joint project between the two countries, have been put into test operation and the other two are under construction.

During President Putin's visit to China in May, the two sides signed a series of agreements on such major projects as a 400-billion-U.S.-dollar contract on gas supplies and an annual supply of 3 million tons of liquified natural gas.

Zhang said the start-of-construction ceremony of the Russian section of the eastern route of the China-Russia natural gas pipelines will be held in two days.

He said China attaches great importance to expanding and deepening energy cooperation with Russia and will abide by the consensus reached by the heads of state of the two countries to devote consistent and unswerving efforts to establishing a strategic partnership of energy cooperation with Russia.

China is ready to work with Russia to push for substantial progress on major joint projects and promote in-depth growth of China-Russia relations with concrete results of bilateral energy cooperation, Zhang said.

Dvorkovich said mutually beneficial cooperation between Russia and China has grown rapidly in the field of energy as relevant projects made progress continuously.

The Russian side is working on further deepening energy cooperation with China and will cooperate closely with China to continuously advance the construction of the natural gas pipelines and other large-scale cooperative projects so as to make active contribution to common development of both countries, Dvorkovich said.

After the meeting, Zhang and Dvorkovich signed the protocol of the meeting.

Zhang flew in Moscow from Prague on Friday evening. During his visit to Russia, Zhang will fly to Yakutsk in eastern Siberia to attend the start-of-construction ceremony of the Russian section of the eastern route of the China-Russia natural gas pipelines.

Russia is the final leg of Zhang's weeklong three-nation tour that also took him to Turkmenistan and the Czech Republic.