China has paid about three-fourths of a debt owed to Russian state-controlled companies for oil deliveries, said Igor Dyomin, a spokesman for Transneft.
Rosneft received $127 million and Transneft got $78 million from China this week, Dyomin said by phone. China paid less than the agreed price for oil shipments that started this year via a spur from the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline, he said.
In 2009, and Transneft agreed to start shipping an annual 15 million metric tons of oil, in exchange for $25 billion in loans.