Tomsk hosted today the 7th meeting of the Joint Coordinating Committee (JCC) between Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). The Russian delegation was led by Alexander Ananenkov, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, Co-Chairman of the JCC.

The parties addressed the issues of interaction within the Eastern Gas Program including the joint arrangement of natural gas supplies from Russia to China.

The parties underlined a great potential of the interaction in the area of gas chemicals production in the eastern part of Russia.

Within the JCC framework, a document on natural gas supplies from Russia to China was initialed.

The 8th JCC meeting is to be held in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 2010.

Background:

China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is the largest state-owned petroleum corporation of China (participation of the Government – 100 per cent) and is one of the leading integrated oil and gas production companies of the world.

CNPC was incorporated in 1998 on the platform of the former PRC Ministry of Petroleum Industry. Today this company consists of entities engaged in oil & gas exploration, development, production, transmission, storage, as well as oil refining, petrochemicals and research. CNPC is the largest crude oil producer & supplier and retains a dominating position in oil & gas production, processing and marketing in China. CNPC and its subsidiaries supply 79 per cent of the domestic oil market, control 95 per cent and 40 per cent of the PRC’s natural gas and petrochemical markets, respectively, and are involved in 28 international investment projects.

Gazprom and CNPC signed the Agreement of Strategic Cooperation on 14 October 2004 in Beijing within the official visit of the Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin to the PRC. The Agreement covers a wide spectrum of joint businesses including scrupulous discussion of the issues relative to the arrangement of Gazprom’s natural gas deliveries to the PRC. To steer the Agreement implementation, the parties set up the Joint Coordinating Committee. The Committee resolved to set up the Joint Working Group to ensure execution of the Agreement, as well as working groups for major joint businesses.

In June 2009 the Governments of Russia and China signed the Memorandum of Understanding for cooperation in the natural gas sector. The Gazprom Management Committee Chairman Alexey Miller visited China in this September and had the negotiations with the CNPC President Jiang Jiemin.