China understands Russia's effort to protect national interests on global energy market - ambassador
MOSCOW. Dec 15 (Interfax) - China understands Russia's effort to protect its national interests on the global energy market, Chinese Ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui said.
"China fully understands the efforts undertaken by Russia to protect its legitimate rights and fundamental interests on the global energy market. China strongly condemns the Nord Stream 2 sabotage. Such intentional actions aimed at destroying civilian facilities are unacceptable," Zhang said at the Russian Gas 2022 - Turn to the East forum.
"China is against the bullying policy pursued by certain countries in the energy sector and will never allow external forces to interfere in energy cooperation between China and Russia," he said.
"Natural gas consumption in China reached 372 bcm in 2021, having grown 12.7% year-on-year. China has become the world's biggest natural gas consumer and has a vast potential for increasing natural gas imports," Zhang said.
"Chinese-Russian gas cooperation is an essential cornerstone of bilateral energy cooperation and a positive factor in the provision of global energy security. Russia increased gas supplies to China by 173% year-on-year over the first ten months of this year. A new future for Chinese-Russian gas cooperation is taking shape in these new circumstances. We are ready to bolster Chinese-Russian gas cooperation to the mutual benefit, for the purpose of sustainable development of the global energy market and the resolution of the climate change problem," he said.
"We can also intensify cooperation in every aspect and the entire production chain. It is necessary to promote the speedy achievement of the pre-project gas transportation capacity of the eastern line of the Power of Siberia Russian-Chinese gas pipeline. We support the implementation of the Russia-Mongolia-China gas pipeline project. We are also ready to boost integrated cooperation with Russia in the fields of pipeline and liquefied gas in the upstream, midstream and downstream throughout the production chain," Zhang said.