China and Russia have signed a multi-billion-dollar intergovernmental agreement, finalizing a series of agreements on constructing an oil pipeline and supplying crude to China.

Vice Premier Wang Qishan and visiting Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin signed the agreement at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Tuesday.

"A series of agreements between Chinese and Russian companies on pipeline construction, crude oil trade, loans and other projects will become immediately effective," Wang told a press briefing.

"It marks a huge breakthrough in realizing energy cooperation between the two nations."

China and Russia signed seven energy agreements in February, including a 20-year deal to pump Russian oil to the Chinese market in return for US$25 billion in loans from China to Russian oil firms.

Russia will provide China with 15 million tons of crude per year from 2011 to 2030.

The 1,030-km pipeline linking the Skovorodino refinery in Russia's Far East and Mohe county in China's Heilongjiang Province will start at the end of this month and will be completed by the end of 2010, the Russian Information Agency said on Tuesday.

It is a branch of the 4,000-km East Siberian-Pacific Ocean pipeline that is currently under construction.

"This is a unique agreement of a long-term nature, which is accompanied by financial agreements, and to implement it we have already begun building the branch from the main pipeline toward China," Sechin told reporters.

"We hope to complete in the shortest time the basic infrastructure and provide stable oil supplies to China."

During their talks, both sides also discussed cooperation in natural gas, nuclear energy, coal, electric power and equipment manufacturing for energy resource development.

Russian Premier Vladimir Putin said last week at a government meeting that oil pipelines to China will give Russia a "stable and reliable" oil market in the East.

Chen Fengying, an economics professor with the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said the oil pipeline will greatly reduce the risks facing China's oil imports, most of which come through the Malacca Strait.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov said last month it is highly possible for Russia to become China's largest energy supplier in 15 years.

(Xinhua News Agency April 22, 2009)