China and Russia Tuesday finalized an oil cooperation agreement including the construction of an oil pipeline, crude trading and a loan, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan and the visiting Russian deputy prime minister, Igor Sechin, signed the agreement in Beijing, the report added.
China reached a long-term pact in February to lend $25 billion to two Russian energy companies in exchange for an expanded supply of Russian oil for 20 years.
State-owned OAO Rosneft, Russia's biggest oil producer, and OAO Transneft, its oil pipeline operator, will split the $25 billion in loans from China Development Bank, a Transneft spokesman had said then, adding in exchange Russia would provide China with an additional 15 million metric tons of crude oil a year.
However, an AFP report said the two sides agreed to a 23-year deal to pump additional Russian oil to China.
Construction of an oil pipeline carrying Russian crude to refineries in China's northeastern regions, a spur of the East Siberian-Pacific Ocean pipeline currently under construction, was also part of the deal.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in early April construction on the spur connecting the Chinese border will be completed in several weeks. However, he didn't specify when it would actually begin pumping Russian oil into China.
Su Shifeng, chief consultant of the China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau, said in March construction of a 170-kilometer pipeline to carry crude from the Russian border to Daqing in Heilongjiang province would begin this year and will likely be ready for use in 2010.
The two sides held further talks Tuesday on cooperation in natural gas, nuclear, coal and power, Xinhua added.