Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping said China hopes for a “major breakthrough” in negotiations over natural gas supplies with Russia when President Hu Jintao visits Russia next week, Reuters reported. Despite loud proclamations of friendship on both sides, Russia and China have bickered over the price of energy in the past. China wants guaranteed supply at an attractive price, while Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom has said that it will not accept lower profits from selling gas to China compared with those in Western Europe. Russia has already built an operating oil pipeline to China and is constructing a natural gas pipeline that should begin delivering gas in 2014. Russian authorities say they should be able to deliver 68 billion cubic meters of gas per year to China once the pipeline and other delivery routes are set up.
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