Present State and Future Prospects of Russia-China Partnership in Energy Field

Sino-Russian cooperation in the energy field opens up various potentials for sustainable economic development of both countries. China, the world’s largest consumer of natural energy resources, second largest oil consumer, third largest oil importer, and one of the biggest emerging markets, is seeking different ways of diversification import channels away from the Gulf States in order to achieve the “energy security” and limit strong dependency on the energy resources from this region. Russia, the world’s second largest oil producer and exporter, and the world’s top producer and exporter of natural gas, is pursuing its own business interests. After Crimean crisis and imposition of sanctions from EU, Russia pays special attention to finding new markets for gas and oil. Since China and Russia signed important gas deals in 2014, the geopolitical situation and global energy markets were faced with new significant transformations on the international market. At the time, Russian relations with EU partners were the worst off in economic and political cooperation. On the other hand, China’s strong desire to diversify sources of energy supply has created possibility for future cooperation between the two countries. This paper aims to identify future trend of Sino-Russian energy cooperation. This paper includes 4 parts. The first one is dedicated to the oil industry. The second one describes gas industry. Oil and gas refineries are presented in the third part of the paper. The last part is dedicated to the coal industry.