Page 6 - AsiaElec Week 48 2022

AsiaElec COMMENTARY AsiaElec

the Russian Ministry of Agriculture. take at least a decade for Russia to pivot its oil
According to Agroexport, the supply of fish and gas infrastructure from West to East. In the
and seafood, sunflower and rapeseed oil, poul- meantime Russia has been boosting its sales to
try meat, and a variety of other items to this China by any means it can.
region have increased. In particular, China in Russia’s pipeline supplies of oil to China
2022 retained the second place among the buy- amounted to 33mn tonnes in January-October,
ers of Russian agricultural products. According which is around last year’s level, vice president of
to analysts, in the first 10 months of 2022, agri- CNPC (China National Petroleum Corporation)
cultural and food products were exported from Huang Yongzhang said at the Russian-Chinese
Russia to China by 34% more than in the same energy business forum.
period in 2021. This was partly owing to a surge “In the first ten months of 2022, 33.26mn
in rapeseed oil sales, which climbed 2.2-fold and tonnes of oil were imported via pipeline from
became the biggest category in Russian supplies Russia to China,” he said.
to China. Frozen fish came in second, with sup- The countries have extended the agree-
ply increasing by 81%. ment on oil deliveries to China’s west, which
will ensure the supply of 100mn tonnes of oil
New export infrastructure within the contract term, according to the vice
Looking further down the road, Russia and president.
China are already looking to expand the energy Delivery of oil by ship is also up by a quar-
infrastructure connecting their two economies. ter (25%) in the first nine months of this year
Some gas is already transported by the East- to 87.5mn tonnes, Russian Deputy Minister of
ern Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO), but it can Transport Alexander Poshivai said at the forum.
carry at most about a tenth of the 155bcm of “In the first nine months of 2021, 70mn
gas Russia used to send westwards before war. tonnes of hydrocarbons were exported from
There are already plans to double ESPO’s capac- Russia to China. In the first nine months of 2022,
ity that can be built relatively quickly, and a sec- 87.5mn tonnes of energy resources were carried
ond Soyuz-Vostok pipeline via Mongolia is also by sea transport, which is 25% higher than in the
planned. But the biggest project is the Power of same period last year. The increase was mainly
Siberia 2, an extension of the existing pipeline due to oil shipments,” he said.
of the same name that would connect the mas- Last year more than 20 vessels were built
sive gas fields in Yamal with China. “Active” talks at Chinese shipyards for Russia, the official
have already begun, but analysts say that it will added, noting that another two ships are being

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 48 29•November•2022