Russia's energy negotiators have started week-long talks with Chinese representatives in a bid to achieve consensus on "loans-for-oil" deals between the two countries.

The parties attending the negotiation, Russian Rosneft and Transneft, have resumed talks on loans for the delivery of Russian oil to China with China National Petroleum Company (CNPC), China Development Bank and Chinese government representatives in Beijing after their first-round negotiation early this month.

The week-long talks started on Sunday.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin and Russian officials from the Sino-Russian energy resources negotiation mechanism will join the talks.

It was reported earlier that under a memorandum of cooperation in the energy sector signed in Moscow in late October, Transneft and Rosneft could receive loans of $10 billion and $15 billion respectively from Chinese banks in exchange for long-term oil deliveries by Rosneft to China, and construction of a spur of the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline to China.

The insiders said the negotiation was shut down on November 12th due to divergence on lending rates and loan guarantees.

During this round of negotiation, the lending rate remains a focus, as Russia negotiatiors have been in discussions with China Development Bank since arriving in Beijing on Sunday.

(China Daily November 25, 2008)