MS:No Russia gas deal seen during Chinese leader's visit
Moscow - A high-profile visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao to Russia will not produce a major natural gas deal between the two countries, as had been hoped, Russian officials said Friday.
'At this time we are not signing anything,' said Aleksander Medvedev, a spokesman for the Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom.
Hu was in Russia on the third day of a four-day official visit.
Russian media had predicted Thursday meetings between Hu and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev could produce an agreement on volumes and prices of natural gas to be shipped from Russia to China for the next 30 years.
'The talks are continuing,' said Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko. 'This is not some simple bazaar deal; we can't hurry on this.'
Despite months of talks before Hu's Kremlin visit, negotiators from Gazprom and the Chinese National Petroleum Company (CNPC) were unable to agree on the price of gas, shipment terms and volumes, the Interfax news agency reported.
Determining how much each country should contribute to construction of new infrastructure needed to handle the proposed increased gas volumes - primarily pipelines and pumping stations - is a particular sticking point, officials said.
Kremlin officials on Thursday said that in the short term, Russia would sell China 38 billion cubic metres of natural gas via a Pacific coast pipeline and another 30 billion cubic metres via pipelines crossing Central Asia.
The long-term agreement still under discussion proposes increasing those volumes substantially, with gas to be delivered by pipelines yet to be built.
Russian official media have given substantial attention to Hu's visit. Chinese is a friendly nation whose markets are critical to Russian growth, they say.
