China and Russia Fail to Reach Deal on Gas Plan - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/world/asia/china-russia.html
President Xi Jinping of China and the Russian leader, Vladimir V. Putin, were unable to announce an agreement on a natural gas deal on Tuesday, despite high expectations that mutual political interests would help finally push through the project.
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A joint statement said that Russian natural gas supplies would start flowing “as soon as possible,” a phrase used after many previous negotiations between Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation, and an indication that the two sides could not close the gap on price in time for the two leaders to announce a deal at their meeting.
Energy analysts had predicted that there would finally be an agreement, partly because Russia might have been willing to accept China’s hard bargaining in order to diversify Gazprom’s natural gas sales into Asia and away from a stagnant market in Europe.
L’absence d’accord surprend les analystes occidentaux, mais apparemment, les affaires sont les affaires…
“Given the political and commercial catalysts, this is a surprising result for everyone and for Gazprom,” said James Henderson, a senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies in Britain. “There was an expectation that with Putin arriving in China and with the political issues with Europe — that would be the trigger to get it over the line.”
