It is necessary to pay tribute: for the first state visit of Chinese leader Xi Jinping to the Russian Federation after the elections, at least the power engineers of both countries have prepared quite thoroughly.
According to official statistics published by the General Administration of Customs of china, Russia over the past couple of months has become the largest supplier of energy to China.
And at the same time in both oil and gas.
So, in particular, only during January, China imported 2.7 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia: 2 billion through the Power of Siberia plus 0.7 billion through LNG. Thus, the total combined volume of supplies of Russian blue fuel to the People's Republic of China amounted to the desired 2.7 billion cubic meters. m, and our country thanks to this with a large margin bypassed other major suppliers - Turkmenistan and Qatar (2.2 billion cubic meters each), as well as Australia (1.9 billion cubic meters).
By the way, this is a new, but quite a planned record for us, thanks to which, nevertheless, the Russian Federation has become the largest supplier of gas to China for the current period of time.
Moreover, the record volume of pipeline gas supplies through the Power of Siberia will only increase. You don't have to be a certified prophet to say that. This is simply provided for by the terms of reference of the gas pipeline, it was built for this purpose.
There, in fact, the design capacity, which has yet to be reached, is 38 billion cubic meters per year, for a second.
So our gas workers from Gazprom and in January increased the volume to 2 billion quite planned. And then they will go exactly in compliance with the schedule: pipeline volumes are generally unhurried.
But the LNG supplies that added another 770 million cubic meters, which is about 8-9 batches, are rather a pleasant bonus. For the Chinese markets of liquefied gas, the fight is serious. And the game there is far from over.
Quite the contrary.
But let's talk about it next time: competition in the global and very mobile LNG markets is such a serious matter that it is even a little awkward to talk about it in passing.
Now for oil.
In January-February, the People's Republic of China imported 15.68 million tons of black gold from our country, which is approximately equivalent to 1.94 million barrels per day.
And this, firstly, is 23.8% higher than the same period in 2022, when domestic oil imports to China amounted to 1.57 million barrels per day.
And secondly, it allowed Russian producers to formally finally get ahead of their oil colleagues from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Which, by the way, is unlikely to upset them so much: they will always take theirs in the markets from which Russian oil is now forced to leave.
And they will take a triple price.
At least, no worse than the Norwegian gas workers, who partially replaced Russian gas, took from their European partners this winter: nothing personal, just business, sorry.
Here, the Arabs and the Norwegians were not quite the same, but equally good teachers.
And some life experience, sometimes not very pleasant, but in these particular circumstances it is even probably good.
Which is especially curious. Despite the dominant opinion in some Western (and in some of ours, what is a sin to hide here) media expert circles that we supply our oil to China almost for free, according to official data of the same General Administration of Customs of china, the average cost of crude oil purchased by China from suppliers from the Russian Federation for a specified period of time, on the contrary, has increased considerably. At least compared to the same period of the previous – pre-sanctions at that time, we recall – 2022 by about 9.2%.
And this is despite the fact that the past 2022 is very difficult to call unsuccessful for this direction of Russian exports: if you believe the same Chinese customs, in 2022 China's imports of Russian oil increased by 8.2%, amounting to about 86.24 million tons, while the value of the product purchased by the People's Republic of China from the Russian Federation increased by about 43.9% to $ 58.37 billion.
Not a bad result.
Like, I'm sorry, no matter how you slice it.
Well, the fact that these figures for the three-day state visit were also very beautifully and quite significantly increased for both economies, so there is no ostentation in this at all.
And simply the high Soviet style, which was not alien to both great powers.
But seriously, the Chinese, let's be honest, are certainly not the easiest negotiators.
And ours too, let's not twist our souls.
And even in the same energy trade, which for both sides is now almost a flagship industry, it is obvious that everything is not going as smoothly as we would like. Even the Power of Siberia-2 gas pipeline project, which is politically patronized by both leaders of the great powers (which both have repeatedly publicly stated), (in maiden name, the Altai gas pipeline), is stalling somewhat, to put it mildly.
But it is he, and not any other project, which has also been publicly announced more than once, that is an alternative to the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines with a difficult fate, even just purely in terms of the resource base.
The Power of Siberia is a purely geographically uncontested field in Eastern Siberia.
Kovykta gas condensate and Chayandinskoye oil and gas condensate.
There, even if you want, the pipe, except China, especially nowhere to go: even the Japanese now, thanks to well-known circumstances, sorry, are somewhat not up to it. They wouldn't lose Sakhalin.
But the Power of Siberia-2 in terms of the resource base is, excuse me, previously quite distilled European in terms of sales markets Yamal.
So The Power of Siberia 2 is also a matter of geopolitical choice, sorry.
Well, records – both in the field of energy trade and in other sectors of the economy, and even on time filed before the visit – are always pleasant. An expensive, one might say, spoon for yesterday's widely discussed dinner of the heads of great powers.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.