中俄达成铺设西线天然气管道协议

MOSCOW — Gazprom, the Russian gas giant, is adding substance to the Kremlin’s plan to shift its economic focus to Asia, as the company signs its second major gas deal with China this year.

莫斯科——天然气巨头俄罗斯天然气工业股份公司（Gazprom，简称俄气）正在为克里姆林宫将经济政策聚焦亚洲的努力增砖添瓦：它与中国签署了今年以来的第二项重大天然气协议。

The deal for a new natural gas pipeline gives Russia additional leverage should tensions persist with the West. Although it would take years to complete, the pipeline would enable exports to China from Russia’s existing Siberian energy fields.

该协议是为了建设一条新的天然气管线。如果与西方的紧张关系长期得不到缓解，此项协议会让俄罗斯拥有更多筹码。虽然管线的建设需要多年时间才能完成，但它将使俄罗斯能够从现有的西伯利亚油气田向中国输送能源。

Eventually, the deal means Russia could ship more natural gas to China than to Germany, now its largest customer. The pipeline, in theory, could also be used to divert energy supplies, currently headed to Europe, to Asia.

最终，这笔交易意味着俄罗斯向中国输送的天然气的规模，可以超过它向德国的输送，而后者目前是俄罗斯最大的客户。理论上讲，这条管线还可以用于让目前运往欧洲的能源改道，转为运往亚洲。

“We’re putting ambitious goals before us, and are sure they will be fulfilled,” Gazprom’s chief executive, Aleksei B. Miller, said in a statement on Sunday announcing the deal, adding that the “wide-ranging work with our Chinese colleague is developing very dynamically.”

“我们正在设定宏大的目标，我们也相信它们能够实现，”俄气公司的首席执行官阿列克谢·B·米勒(Alexey B Miller)周日在宣布这笔交易的声明中说。他还表示，“与中国同行的广泛合作正在活跃增长。”

Chinese customers are a welcome relief. The Russian economy and its energy giants have been swooning under the pressure of low oil prices and the sanctions over the Ukraine crisis. Also on the sidelines of an Asian economic summit meeting, the Russian state bank Sberbank signed an agreement to secure about $2 billion in financing from Chinese lenders, important for replacing European financing cut off by sanctions.

中国的客户让俄罗斯松了一口气。面对油价走低的压力和乌克兰危机引发的制裁，俄罗斯经济及能源巨头举步维艰。此外，在亚洲经济峰会的边会上，国有的俄罗斯联邦储蓄银行(Sberbank)还签署了一份协议，确保了从中国多家放款机构获得约20亿美元（约合122亿元人民币）的融资。这对于抵消制裁引发的欧洲融资的枯竭至关重要。

In a sign of the mounting problems, the Russian central bank, which has spent about $30 billion in a month defending the ruble, announced Monday it would allow the currency to float freely, rather than maintain trading bands with the euro and dollar. The bank had planned to eliminate the trading corridors by the end of the year but sped up the policy shift as the economy has weakened.

俄罗斯央行在一个月的时间里就花费了约300亿美元来维持卢布的汇率。该行周一宣布，将允许卢布自由浮动，不再维持与欧元和美元的波动区间。这显示出俄罗斯面临的问题正不断增多。央行此前本已计划在年底之前取消交易走廊，但随着经济的走软，它加速了政策的转变。

The gas deal is the latest example of the Kremlin’s deft use of pipeline politics. The design of Eurasian pipelines to strengthen Russia’s geopolitical position, sometimes compared to a slow-motion chess match, has been a strong suit for President Vladimir V. Putin since he first took office more than a decade ago.

这笔天然气交易是克里姆林宫熟练利用“管线政治”的最新例子。欧亚管线的设计就是为了强化俄罗斯的地缘政治地位，它有时被比作一场慢条斯理的棋局。自从俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·V·普京(Vladimir V. Putin)十多年前上台以来，这一招一直是他的杀手锏。

Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation signed a framework agreement to build the pipeline along a so-called western corridor, which would cross into China over the Altai Mountains, between Kazakhstan and Mongolia. The deal signed in May, soon after tensions with the West spiked over the Ukraine crisis, foresees exporting Russian gas from gas fields in eastern Siberia (not yet completely developed) to China, along a route called the Power of Siberia pipeline. Gazprom said it was worth $400 billion over the decades-long lifetime of the planned project.

俄气和中国石油天然气集团公司（简称中石油）签署了一份框架协议，计划沿着“西部走廊”铺设管线。此条管线将从哈萨克斯坦和蒙古中间经由阿尔泰山脉进入中国。这笔交易签署于5月，俄罗斯与西方的冲突达到白热化后不久。根据协议，俄罗斯计划将来从西伯利亚东部的气田（尚未完全开发）通过一条叫做“西伯利亚力量”的管线向中国输送天然气。俄气公司称，这个计划中的项目为期数十年，价值可达4000亿美元。

Energy analysts, though, have been skeptical the politically hued deal announcements this year will smoothly translate into a real natural gas market in eastern Eurasia.

然而，能源行业的分析人士一直怀疑，两国今年宣布的这些政治色彩浓厚的协议是否能够顺利地在欧亚大陆东部建成一个真正的天然气市场。

“It’s still a very, very long process,” said Fereidun Fesharaki, chairman of Facts Global Energy, a market research firm. The pipelines require a decade or more to build. “The best thing for the Russians is to supply Europe because the capital is already sunk,” he said. “Europe can’t do without Russia and Russia can’t do without Europe. If you want to do away with dependence on Russia you need a 20-year plan.” For now, the Chinese deals are for Russia, “a way of saying we have other options.”

“这仍然是一个非常、非常漫长的过程，”市场调研企业费氏全球能源咨询公司(Facts Global Energy)的董事长费雷敦·费沙拉基(Fereidun Fesharaki)说。这条管线需要十年，乃至更长时间才能建成。“俄罗斯最好的选择就是为欧洲提供能源，因为资本已经减少了，”他说。“欧洲不能没有俄罗斯，俄罗斯也不能没有欧洲。如果要脱离对俄罗斯的依赖，需要制定一个为期20年的计划。”目前，对俄罗斯而言，与中国的协议“是为了表明我们还有其他选择。”

More broadly, testing the commercial prospects in China has been a slow and politically fraught exercise.

从更宏观的层面来看，探测俄罗斯能源在中国的商业前景一直是个缓慢而充满政治意味的过程。

Since the Ussuri River border skirmishes that marked the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s, the Kremlin has perceived its long border with China as a security challenge as much as a commercial opportunity. The border was only fully demarcated in 2009. Despite the warm rhetoric, even simple infrastructure such as a planned new railroad bridge over the Amur River has been repeatedly delayed.

20世纪60年代，发生在乌苏里江边境地区的冲突标志着中国和前苏联的交恶。自那时起，克里姆林宫就一直认为，虽然它与中国的漫长边界线意味着商业机会，但同时也代表着安全隐患。直到2009年，两国边界的划分才得到完全确立。尽管双方措辞友善，但就连简单的基础设施建设也一再被推迟，比如计划中的一条横跨黑龙江的新铁路桥。

Deals are picking up, though. In another agreement announced in Beijing, the China National Petroleum Corporation agreed to buy a 10 percent stake in the giant Vankor Siberian oil field, which is majority owned by new pipelines will take years to build. If completed as planned, they would export 68 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year to China.

不过，越来越多的交易正在进行。根据在北京宣布的另一项协议，中石油同意购入万科尔(Vankor)西伯利亚巨型油田10%的股份。该油田目前由俄罗斯石油公司(Rosneft)持有多数股份。这条新管线要花上多年时间才能建成。如果按计划完工，每年将能向中国输送680亿立方米的天然气。

Today, Germany is Russia’s largest customer buying 40 billion cubic meters annually. Still, the European Union as a whole would remain Russia’s largest customer, buying about twice as much as China would under the new deals.

目前，德国是俄罗斯最大的天然气客户，每年要向其购买400亿立方米。不过，欧盟作为一个整体，将来仍然会是俄罗斯最大的客户，其购买量是新协议设定的中国购买量的大约两倍。

“This is just business as usual,” Yan Vaslavski, an associate professor of political science at Moscow State Institute of International Relations, said in a telephone interview of the gas deals. Russia has no intention of diminishing gas shipments to Europe, integrally important for the Russian economy as they are. Instead, the China deals are insurance, he said: Should Europe squeeze Russian energy companies, they ensure revenue from west Siberian petroleum fields.

“情况一如既往，”莫斯科国立国际关系学院(Moscow State Institute of International Relations)的政治学副教授扬·瓦斯拉夫斯基(Yan Vaslavski)在针对这些天然气交易的电话采访中说。俄罗斯并不打算减少送往欧洲的天然气，因为这是俄罗斯经济不可或缺的部分。与中国的交易则是一种保障，他说：假如欧洲让俄罗斯能源公司承压，它们还能从西伯利亚西部的油田获得收入保障。

“Russia is not turning its back on Europe,” he said. “But if Russia doesn’t turn to the East in time, this train will leave without Russia.”

“俄罗斯并没有背弃欧洲，”他说。“可是，如果俄罗斯没能及时转向东方，这辆列车就会离俄罗斯而去。”