Zhou Liqun: ‘Whoever takes the helm in the United States, cooperation with Russia will not change’
Representatives of three leading Chinese oilfield service companies, capable of challenging the American giants Schlumberger and Halliburton, arrived in Kazan
“What's my take on the election of Donald Trump? Whoever is elected president of the United States, the economic cooperation between China and Russia will not change," Chairman of the Chinese Entrepreneurs Union in Russia Zhou Liqun said with conviction at the thematic session “Russia and China in the global petrochemical industry” within the framework of ROSTCHI forum. After our country reoriented all exports of oil and petrochemical products to Asia, China began to be considered as a technological partner of the fuel and energy sector. Tatneft has formed projects worth $4.5 billion (including in the oilfield service), and Tatarstan farmers have been increasing food exports to China to $40-45 million for the second year in a row. What the Chinese fuel and energy sector expects from the alliance with Russia — read the details in the material of Realnoe Vremya.
Chinese oilfield service instead of American
Russian-Chinese relations are at their peak in the entire history of cooperation between the two countries, and this promises tempting prospects for closer cooperation in the Russian oil and gas sector. After all, it was the export of Russian oil, petroleum products and petrochemistry that became the basis for the explosive growth of trade turnover between Russia and China, the honourary Chinese guests of the II ROSTCHI Russia and China — Mutually Beneficial Cooperation International Forum proudly stated.
For the first time, the heads of three leading oilfield service companies in China came to Kazan. Among them — the head of Kezhui Oil and Gas Services Lu Xingsheng, CEO of Taihe Shaanxi Intelligent Drilling LLC Wang Yihong and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Hainan Longpan Oilfield Xu Xinjing. They are considered competitors of the world-famous American oilfield services companies Schlumberger and Halliburton. Representatives of the Russian fuel and energy sector used to use the services of the latter in the production of hard-to-recover oil, but after the introduction of American sanctions they experienced significant difficulties. After the change in energy export flows to Asia, Chinese oilfield service companies opened offices in Moscow.
Speaking at the opening, Liu Jun, Minister Plenipotentiary of the Chinese Embassy in the Russian Federation, said that the trade turnover between Russia and China had grown above the planned level. “Last year it amounted to $240 billion, and now it has already approached the $202 billion mark, ahead of planned targets," he said optimistically. According to him, strengthening cooperation with Russia has symbolic significance also because this year marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between our countries, and against the background of a difficult geopolitical situation, friendship between the Russian Federation and China attracts the attention of the whole world, he noted.
As the host of the Russia China Expo, Tatarstan rais Rustam Minnikhanov thanked his Chinese colleagues for responding to the invitation. “Today, thanks to the personal efforts of the heads of state — the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China — there is a good opportunity to work as actively as possible at the interregional level," he welcomed the guests.
A house made of laminated timber for Minnikhanov
Tatarstan is primarily attractive because of its investment environment," supported He Zhongyu, Deputy Secretary of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Communist Party Committee. According to him, the province is a technological centre in the development of wind generation and may be of interest to the republic. “Thanks to green energy, 100 million kW, or half of the capacity, has been generated in the province," he outlined the scale of technological leadership and noted that technologies for the production of composite materials have also been mastered here. Chinese politicians agreed that in the new era, Russian-Chinese relations are the key to ensuring stability in the Eurasian region.
The governor of the Kirov Region, Alexander Sokolov, came to the ROSTCHI forum for the second time, and the region itself presented a separate exposition at the exhibition. The main feature is timber.
“Our region supplies timber not only to China," business representatives said. “We are friends with the Turkish Kastamonu. They take everything we can supply.”
Two years ago, the Kirov company built a house for Rustam Minnikhanov from digitised timber, they said and showed a rare photo. But they did not disclose how much the Tatarstan rais had to pay for this housing. “Yes, they took it cheap," the businessmen joked.
Tatneft has subscribed to Chinese technologies
“What's my take on the election of Donald Trump? Whoever is elected as the President of the United States, economic cooperation between China and Russia will not change," said Zhou Liqun, Chairman of the Union of Chinese Entrepreneurs in Russia, as he began his speech at the thematic session Russia and China in the Global Oil and Gas Chemical Industry Before the start of the session, Russian journalists asked him if there were any fears that the election of Donald Trump could affect the friendship between Russia and China. Zhou Liqun replied in the negative and decided to repeat this thesis in his speech.
In his opinion, Russia with rich energy resources and China with technology can create an indestructible alliance to maintain global stability and multipolar development of the world. At the same time, he acknowledged that there are challenges. For example, logistics chains are being destroyed, and difficulties with calculations arise.
Nail Maganov, CEO of Tatneft, said that he is implementing a number of projects in petrochemistry and refining with Chinese partners, the total volume of cooperation is about $4.5 billion and may grow in the future.
“Together with our Chinese comrades, we are implementing several projects in the petrochemical industry, we are implementing projects in oil refining. Suffice it to say, to estimate the volume, that today we have a portfolio of projects somewhere around $4.5 billion," he said.
Representatives of the Chinese oilfield services offered to use their solutions not only in onshore oil production, but also in offshore. However, Tatneft does not have any offshore projects yet. In the last two years, Russia has reoriented the supply of oil and petroleum products from unfriendly countries to Asian countries, and 50% fell on China. According to the participants of the meeting, this trend will intensify. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak is expected to speak on this topic at the main plenary session of the forum.
Earlier, at another session, Tatarstan farmers said that against the background of improving relations between Russia and China, they are increasing food exports to $40-45 million for the second year in a row. According to the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Tatarstan, Tatarstan ships agricultural products to 52 countries of the world, even to Brazil. But most of all it falls on the PRC. Dairy products, poultry meat, vegetable and rapeseed oil are exported, but the republic is ready to attract Chinese for processing within the region. Now the main flow of exports passes through Kazakhstan to China, as the largest market. At the same time, industry enterprises are allocated subsidies to promote their goods for export.