Bloggers are actively discussing the "highly successful" borrowing that Russia, through Rosneft and Transneft, has secured from the Chinese. $25 billion for 20 years. Everyone is crunching the numbers, trying to figure out whether it is выгодно or not. For those who like digging through figures, I recommend this post and comments by ****rusanalit**. **My opinion on these "highly successful Chinese loans" for Rosneft is generally well known. A complaint on this matter is currently being reviewed by the tax crimes unit. As for the new billions, I can add the following rather simple observation. This view is based on my conversations with fairly senior guys from one Very Large Oil Company. Their attitude toward supplies to China and money coming from there is best summed up by a line from a famous Soviet cartoon: "We don't want your daughters for free, and we don't want them with money either". There is no oil. Nothing to ship. And if there is something to ship, it can be sent in another direction at a higher price. So why all this fuss over the loan? To build the idiotic ESPO pipeline, that's why. The scam of the century. There are VERY serious doubts that this pipeline is needed at all. But they are building it anyway. Because it involves insanely huge sums of money being spent with no oversight. Who is going to check how many vehicles sank into the swamp, how many millions of tons of gravel were dumped somewhere out there, and how many portions of shashlik (grilled meat skewers) were thrown into the abyss? In the taiga, the law is what the bear says (a Russian saying meaning there is effectively no rule of law). Besides, everything is classified. That is exactly why skimming money off pipeline construction is a favorite sport of the Russian leadership. So what are the borrowed funds being used for? For the pipeline. They borrowed from the Chinese in order to build a pipeline for the Chinese. And some of it will also go to Vankor and other projects in Eastern Siberia, to fill ESPO with oil and ship it to China. In short, the crafty Chinese did not extend favorable credit to Russia. They extended credit to themselves. While kicking back a little something (around 30–40 percent) to the people making the decisions. That's about it.
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