中俄博弈 天然气交易大单凸显主动权向中国转移

To the casuAl observer, it’s easy to doubt that China and Russia would have ever struck a natural gas supply and purchase deal during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Shanghai last month. After all, countless summits between Chinese and Russian leaders have come and gone with no final agreement signed for the long-discussed plans to ship more Russian gas to China. However, Putin and Xi finally ended an energy courtship, agreeing to a $400 billion deal for the delivery of 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China starting in 2018.

中俄天然气交易已经酝酿数年之久，如今终于达成协议。包括这笔交易在内，中俄近十几年年来在能源领域的一系列合作表明，双方博弈的主动权已经逐渐从俄罗斯转移到了中国手中。

Long before the Chinese and Russian leaders on May 21 toasted their supply contract, the two countries had viewed each other as attractive natural gas partners. Russia regarded tapping into the Chinese market as essential to its plans to diversify its exports away from Europe, where natural gas demand is projected to grow at a substantially slower pace than in China. Meanwhile, the surge in China’s natural gas demand in recent years made the Chinese eye their northern neighbor, the world’s largest natural gas exporter, as an important source of supply to fill the gap between China’s domestic natural gas production and consumption.

上个月，俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔o普京与中国国家主席习近平在上海会面时，外行的观察者们可能不会相信中俄两国会达成天然气供应协议。毕竟，针对俄罗斯向中国增加天然气出口的问题，两国经历了漫长的谈判，双方领导人也进行了无数次会谈，却始终没有结果。最终，普京与习近平终于敲定了4,000亿美元的能源合作协议。双方商定，俄罗斯从2018年开始，每年向中国输送380亿立方米天然气。

Developments in the months leading up to the Shanghai summit may have provided Russia and China with added incentives to get serious about a natural gas marriage. For Russia, the new imperative is the country’s increased isolation from the United States and Europe in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the resulting Western sanctions.

5月21日，中俄两国领导人为达成天然气供应协议举杯庆贺。事实上，两国很早便将彼此视为极具吸引力的天然气合作伙伴。俄罗斯希望摆脱天然气出口业务对欧洲的依赖，而中国市场对实现这个计划至关重要。根据预测，欧洲市场的天然气需求增长速度将远远低于中国。而另一面，近几年，中国天然气需求激增，而中国的北方近邻作为全球最大的天然气出口国，自然被中国视为填补国内天然气产量与消费量差距的重要供应来源。

Europe’s renewed interest in finding alternatives to natural gas supplies from Russia, and the calls by U.S. policymakers and pundits for Washington to expedite the process for granting LNG export licenses and lift the virtual ban on crude oil exports to help wean Europe off Russian energy, undoubtedly made signing a gas pact with China even more appealing to Moscow.

而近几个月，促使两国举行上海峰会的局势变化，也为中俄认真考虑天然气合作提供了更多诱因。在俄罗斯方面，吞并克里米亚地区和由此导致的西方国家制裁使俄罗斯遭到美国和欧洲的进一步孤立，因此，与中国的合作势在必行。

For China, the country’s poor air quality and it’s “war on pollution” declared by Premier Li Keqiang in March likely increased the desirability of Russian natural gas. Indeed, the Chinese government’s announcement in April that the country aims to more than double the country’s natural gas consumption from 170 bcm in 2013 to 400-420 bcm in 2020 means China now needs Russian gas more than ever.

欧洲重新开始寻找新的天然气供应以取代俄罗斯，而美国决策者和华盛顿权威人士呼吁加快授予液化天然气出口许可的进程以及取消原油出口禁令，以帮助欧洲摆脱对俄罗斯能源的依赖，这无疑使得莫斯科方面更加迫切与中国签署一份天然气协定。

The major obstacle that Russia and China encountered on past attempts to make it to the altar was price. Russia did not want to sell gas to China at a price lower than it commanded in Europe, its largest customer. Meanwhile, China did not want to buy gas at a higher price than it paid Turkmenistan, its largest supplier of natural gas.

在中国方面，糟糕的空气质量以及今年三月份李克强总理“向污染宣战”的决心使得俄罗斯的天然气更具吸引力。实际上，中国政府今年四月份宣布，到2020年，全国天然气消费量将增长两倍以上，从2013年的1,700亿立方米增加到4,000 – 4,200亿立方米。这就意味着，中国现在更需要俄罗斯的天然气。

Although the Russians and the Chinese have come to a meeting of the minds on price, they are treating it as a commercial secret. Consequently, there has been much speculation by outside analysts about the price implied by the $400 billion contract and what it says about which country got the better deal. A back-of-the-envelope calculation yields an implied price of $350 per thousand cubic meters, which is close to what the Chinese are understood to have paid for gas from Turkmenistan last year. This estimate fits with the consensus among many outside observers in the lead up to the summit that Chinese had the upper hand due to Russia’s strained relations with the U.S. and Europe and the number of natural gas producers eager to supply the Chinese market.

过去，中俄无法达成天然气协议的主要障碍在于价格。俄罗斯不希望价格低于自己向最大的客户欧洲出口天然气的价格。而中国却不希望价格高于自己从最大天然气供应国土库曼斯坦进口天然气的价格。

That said, we do not know the pricing formula, the base number to be plugged into that formula or how a variety of other issues on the negotiating table – such as the apparent lack of upstream access in Russia for the Chinese, a rumored prepayment from the Chinese to the Russians, a Russian proposal to exempt gas sent to China from a mineral extraction tax, a Chinese proposal to exempt Russian supplies from an LNG import tax, and expectations about the pace of natural gas price reform in China – influenced both countries decisions about price.

中俄两国最终就价格问题达成了共识，但双方都把这个价格看成商业机密。因此，对于4,000亿美元合同中隐含的价格以及合同的受益方，外界分析师有大量的猜测。通过大致计算得出的隐含价格是每千立方米350美元，基本接近去年中国从土库曼斯坦进口天然气的价格。这个估算结果也符合许多外部观察家在两国领导人峰会之前的一致意见，即由于俄罗斯与美国和欧洲的紧张关系，而且希望向中国市场供应天然气的国家大有人在，因此，中国在谈判中掌握了主动权。

It is also important to note that this is not a marriage among equals. The natural gas supply agreement is the third time in the past decade that the Russians have brokered a multi-billion dollar energy deal with the Chinese in a time of need. In 2005, the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China were lenders of last resort to Rosneft, providing the Russian national oil company with a $6 billion oil-backed loan to help fund the purchase of the main production asset of a private Russian oil company, Yukos.

另外需要注意的一点是，中俄两国在这笔交易中并不是处在平等的地位上。过去十年间，包括此次天然气供应协议在内，俄罗斯曾经三次在有需要的时候与中国达成数十亿美元的能源交易。2005年，中国国家开发银行（China Development Bank）与中国进出口银行（Export-Import Bank of China）成为俄罗斯石油公司（Rosneft）的最后贷款人，为这家俄罗斯国有石油公司提供60亿美元以石油为抵押的贷款，帮助它收购俄罗斯私有石油公司尤科斯（Yukos）的主要生产资产。

Four years later, the China Development Bank extended oil-backed loans worth $25 billion to Rosneft and Transneft, the state-owned pipeline operator, when oil prices collapsed and credit crunch during the global financial crisis left both Russian companies in a world of hurt. These deals have not only deepened bilateral energy relations, but also underscored a shift in power in the relationship away from Russia and toward China.

四年后，中国国家开发银行向俄罗斯石油公司和俄罗斯国有管道运营商俄罗斯石油运输公司（Transneft）提供了250亿美元以石油为抵押的贷款。当时正值全球金融危机，石油价格暴跌，信贷紧缩，这两家俄罗斯公司都陷入困境。这几笔交易不仅加深了两国的能源关系，同时也意味着在这种关系中，主动权正在从俄罗斯向中国转移。

Regardless of which country may have conceded more, both countries can present themselves as winners to domestic and international audiences. The gas deal signifies that the China-Russia energy relationship is starting to live up to its full potential. Russia, which was China’s fourth largest crude oil supplier in 2013, is poised to become a major source of natural gas imports for its southern neighbor. This arrangement should provide Russia with greater security of demand and China with greater security of supply in the long-term. In the short-term, the main benefits of the gas agreement are political. Russia can claim a powerful friend in China, and China can point to another indicator of its growing economic and political clout on the world stage.

不论到底哪一方做出了更多让步，在国内和国际舞台上，中国两国都把自己描绘成获胜者。这次的天然气交易预示着中俄两国的能源关系开始充分发挥潜力。2013年，俄罗斯是中国第四大原油供应国，未来将成为它南方邻邦重要的天然气进口来源。从长期来看，这份协议将分别给俄罗斯和中国带来更可靠的供应与需求保障。而从短期而言，天然气协议的主要好处表现在政治方面。俄罗斯可以获得中国这个强有力的盟友，而中国也获得了又一次机会，彰显出它在世界舞台日益扩大的经济与政治影响力。

Erica Downs is a fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings Institution. She focuses on the international expansion of Chinese companies and China’s energy and foreign policies as well as government-business relations in China, and was previously was an energy analyst at the CIA.

本文作者邓丽嘉是布鲁金斯学会约翰oLo桑顿中国研究中心研究员。她一直致力于研究中国公司的海外扩张、中国的能源和外交政策以及中国政府与企业的关系，之前曾在美国中央情报局担任能源分析师。