The President of LUKOIL, Vagit Alekperov signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) in Beijing yesterday. The deal, was announced originally on 8th September, but formalised yesterday during the state visit of Dmitry Medvedev to China. 

As part of the agreement LUKOIL and CNPC have agreed to cooperate on existing projects including Kumkol and Severnye Buzachi in Kazakhstan. The agreement also paves the way for the companies to work together on upstream projects in Russia, China and other countries and includes the potential for asset swaps. Also under consideration is supplying oil to China via China National Petroleum Company.

The board of OAO Rosneft on Sunday appointed First Vice-President Eduard Khudainatov, a former Gazprom executive, as the head of Russia's state-controlled oil major as its profits grew 37%. The board took less than a day to approve Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's order to nominate Khudainatov to the post. He starts in his new position Monday replacing Sergei Bogdanchikov who only last week told reporters, "I will certainly not resign, I am a Rosneft shareholder, I am Rosneft president, a member of the board of directors, I feel devotion towards it."

Russian companies will supply about 70 percent of the required oil at market prices for a joint refinery project involving China's CNPC and Russia's Rosneft, China's Energy Minister Zhang Guobao said on Tuesday.

"The issue is resolved following friendly talks," Guobao said after an energy cooperation subcommittee meeting between the two countries.

For 500 years, commodity traders have been trying to conquer the treacherous waters of the Russian Arctic passage – aware of its potential as a lucrative short-cut shipping route.The path is blocked all winter and only smaller cargo vessels manage to navigate through the icebergs for two to three months each summer. But last week, the first commercial supertanker has succeeded in traversing the strait. Carrying 70,000 tonnes of gas from Murmansk in Russia destined for Ningbo in China, the feat has moved the difficult Northern Sea Route a step closer to rivalling the dominant Suez Canal in the south.

Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Sunday formally opened the Russian section of an oil pipeline to China, hailing it as an important step in diversifying energy exports away from Europe. The new pipeline is a 64-km spur from the strategic 4,800-km Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline. The first 2,700-km section from Taishet in the Siberian region of Irkutsk east to Skovorodino in the Amur Region was inaugurated by Putin last December. The pipeline, built and operated by state monopoly Transneft, will enable Russia to export crude oil from its new oilfields in Eastern Siberia to the Asian Pacific markets of China, Korea and Japan from its terminal at Kozmina, on the Sea of Japan.

The Russian oil company Rosneft plans to increase its oil production to 133 million tones a year by 2015, up from 119 million tones now, the company's Vice President Mikhail Stavsky said Saturday, according to Voice of Russia

Russia's largest oil producer OAO Rosneft announced an increase of second-quarter net profits last week of  59% on higher oil prices and increased crude output at its Vankor field. London-listed Rosneft said net profit rose to $2.56 billion from $1.61 billion a year earlier.