中俄博弈：天然气交易大单凸显主动权向中国转移

    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。

    上个月，俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔•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。

    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。

    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。

    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。

    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。

    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。

    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。

    尽管如此，我们并不清楚定价公式，也不知道可以代入公式的基数，以及谈判桌上的其他问题。例如，中国在俄罗斯明显缺少对上游产业的介入，外界传言的中国向俄罗斯支付的预付款，俄罗斯考虑免除向中国输送天然气的矿产开采税，中国考虑免除俄罗斯向中国供应天然气的液化天然气进口税，以及中国天然气价格改革的进度等，这些因素都会影响两国的价格决策。

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.