Russia and China agreed on Tuesday to forge ahead with a $5 billion refinery to boost supply to fuel hungry Beijing but the key question for Russia - the future of gas exports to China - went unanswered. Russia's powerful oil boss, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, joined Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan in the future refinery town of Tianjin to lay the cornerstone of the 13-million-tonne per year (260,000 bpd) refinery, to be completed in two years.
The refinery is a joint venture between China National Petroleum Corp and Russia's top oil producer, state owned Rosneft. As if to underline the urgency of the project for fuel hungry China, the second-largest oil consumer after the United States, its petrol or gasoline consumption rose 10.7 percent year on year in August, official data showed on Tuesday.
Under the agreement, Russia will supply 70 percent of the oil to the Tianjin refinery, a spokesman for Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, in Tianjin for talks, told Reuters by telephone. The spokesman said Sechin put the cost at $5 billion but did not specify how the investment would be shared.