Gazprom Aims to Sign Basic Terms of China Gas Deal in Sept

Russia's Gazprom expects to sign an agreement in September on the basic terms of a deal to provide gas supplies to China and aims to conclude the deal by the end of this year, the company said on Wednesday.

Sergei Kupriyanov, a spokesman for the Russian gas exporting monopoly, said Gazprom and China were still discussing the pricing formula for the deal.

"We have moved forward in talks, (but) the pricing formula is still under discussion," he said.

Gazprom said its Chief Executive Officer, Alexei Miller, and the chairman of China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), Zhou Jiping, had met in Moscow "to discuss the issues of long-term gas supply deal".

"The talks were held yesterday. We expect to sign the basic terms of agreement in September. The timing of implementation remains the same - the end of 2013," Miller told reporters in Russia's second city, St Petersburg.

Interfax news agency had reported earlier on Wednesday that the final deal was expected to be signed in September and that China and Gazprom had agreed on a pricing formula, removing the main stumbling block to the agreement.

But Kupriyanov made clear later that this was not the case.

In March, Gazprom and China signed a memorandum of understanding on supplies of 38 billion cubic metres of Russian gas to China each year via a pipeline, starting from 2018. Gazprom has said it plans to clinch the deal by the end of this year.

(Reuters, edited by Topco）