“WSJ”: Gazprom loan from China signal dependence on Beijing – Banker

              Russian company Gazprom received a loan from the Bank of China with a value of 2.17 billion USD. This is the biggest loan from one bank in the history of this company and a sign of how Western sanctions increase the dependency of Moscow from Beijing – wrote on Friday, “Wall Street Journal”.
           

 
 
 

The agreement announced Thursday; Gazprom did not disclose details on the terms of a five-year loan.

 

writes “WSJ” is the latest agreement on the expansion of Chinese investment in Russia’s oil and gas industry, which is the main source of exports and which is paralyzed by US sanctions prohibiting some Russian companies to obtain long-term loans in dollars. Gazprom is not one of these companies, but the sanctions effectively cut off Russian companies from access to Western capital markets – the newspaper added.

 

According to her, investment growth will give China, the largest consumer of energy in the world, great access to Russian hydrocarbon resources, and strengthens relations between neighbors who share a desire to become a counterweight to American influence in the world.
 

China last year They agreed to increase its share in worth $ 27 billion LNG project in the Arctic, which has no access to dollar funding and also waiting for loans from Beijing. The source of alternative financing are also Chinese prepayment for oil supplies from the Russian oil company Rosneft. Gazprom hopes that worth 55 billion dollars project of gas supplies to China will reduce the company’s dependence on exports to Europe – explains the “WSJ”.

 

US President Barack Obama on Wednesday extended for another year the presidential decrees of March 2014 on the basis of which the government has applied sanctions against Russia in connection with its policy towards Ukraine.

 

“WSJ” quotes Natalia Orlov with Alfa Bank in Moscow, according to which “it seems that the announcement of information about the loan has been so planned to show that despite the rehabilitation Russian companies can still raise funds.” “But no one should expect that Chinese banks will replace the global capital market,” – she said.

 

According to the US daily credit could give China greater influence in the expected renegotiation gas prices, which can be supplied to the Middle Kingdom at the end of the decade – said partner at the consulting firm RusEnergy Mikhail Krutichin. (PAP)
 

JHP / penalties /