China called on Russia Tuesday to ensure oil giant Yukos meets
commitments to Chinese customers.
Yukos decided over the weekend to suspend exports to state-owned
China National Petroleum
Corp. (CNPC), the country's largest oil company, because it
cannot pay the freight and customs costs.
Yukos was scheduled to ship about 400,000 metric tons of oil per
month to CNPC, for a total of 1 million tons before the end of the
year.
The company, which pumps a fifth of Russia's output and supplies
approximately 7 percent of China's daily consumption needs, is in a
dispute with Russian authorities over taxes and has had its bank
accounts frozen.
Some analysts believe that Yukos' action is a ploy designed to
put pressure on the Kremlin ahead of Premier Wen Jiabao's state
visit to Russia, which begins on Thursday. Wen will meet President
Vladimir Putin and other Russian leaders during the trip.
Energy cooperation is in fact a top agenda item, according to
Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan.
China's energy needs are surging in line with its rapid economic
growth. Oil imports from Russia jumped 73 percent last year to 5.3
million tons. Crude oil imports for the first eight months of this
year reached nearly 80 million tons, up 39.2 percent from the same
period last year, according to the General Administration of
Customs.
Russian producers supplied 6.4 million tons of crude oil to
China from January to August.
(Xinhua News Agency, China Daily September 22,
2004)