Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Gazprom and China's CNPC had agreed in principle on a pricing mechanism for future Russian gas deliveries to the energy-hungry Asian giant.
Putin, speaking to reporters at the end of a visit to Beijing, said the Russian gas giant and China National Petroleum Corp would peg the gas price to an "Asian oil basket", without elaborating.
"The issue of calculating a pricing formula has been solved in principle," he said, calling it the "most sensitive issue" in the long-running negotiations.
"This was the major stumbling block," the prime minister said.
Gazprom and CNPC on Tuesday signed a framework agreement which Gazprom chief Alexei Miller said could see about 70 billion cubic metres of natural gas sent to China a year, but no financial details were divulged.
Gazprom is keen to diversify its client base beyond its traditional European consumers, who have in recent years been looking for ways to reduce their dependence on Russian gas.
China is meanwhile seeking to secure energy resources to fuel its growing economy.
Miller said supplies would be ferried to China along two routes — the Western route, from western Siberia, and the Eastern route, from eastern Siberia, the Russian far east and Sakhalin island.
Putin said gas could start flowing along the Western route "before 2015", and later along the Eastern route.
Miller had said on Tuesday that the Eastern route was more complicated because it requires construction of gas-processing facilities.
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