Gazprom and CNPC look set to sign a 30-year, 38 billion cubic meter per year supply deal this week at price between $350 and $400 per 1,000 cubic meters. “The deal has been on the table for over 10 years, as Moscow and Beijing have negotiated back and forth over price, the gas pipeline route, and possible Chinese stakes in Russian projects. The gas price is expected to be agreed at between $350-400 per thousand cubic meters. In January Gazprom gave an estimate between $360-$400 per 1,000 cubic meters but now Russian newspaper Izvestia has cited a Gazprom employee forecasting a lower range between $350-$380 per 1,000 cubic meters.” [Russia Today]

Answering calls from investors about the risk of oil and gas reserves becoming “stranded assets” in a carbon-constrained world, the Anglo-Dutch major recently said it expects fossil fuels to remain an important part of the energy mix through 2050 and beyond. “In its 2013 annual report, Shell warned that tougher rules on greenhouse gas emissions may lead to higher operating costs, delayed projects and reduced demand for its products. But on Friday the company said that the long-lived nature of the global energy system’s underlying infrastructure and the many assets within it mean that any regulatory-induced change would ‘inevitably take decades’. ‘The world can tackle and resolve the climate issue over the course of this century, but not in less time than that.’” [Upstream]

The deployment of solar power in Saudi Arabia is taking longer than many would like and leadership is growing increasingly concerned that domestic liquids consumption will begin reducing volumes of oil available for export in the next two decades. So interestingly, it appears the kingdom is giving national oil company Saudi Aramco some solar development responsibilities given the company’s experience managing large projects with western firms. “The government solar plan is moving very slow, and we are hearing about it for some time, but it’s not maturing as fast as it should,” Gasem al-Shaikh, head of energy unit at Saudi Binladin Group, said in an interview in Manama. “The country can’t wait. We are burning more liquids every year, and that’s why Saudi Aramco now is taking the lead.” [Bloomberg]