The Chinese are also involved in a separate planned naturalgaspipelineproject that will run westward from their British Columbia shale deposits to Vancouver for export to China.
The loan, which was the largest ever provided to Russia by Eximbank, will finance the sale of 295 Caterpillar tractors for a naturalgaspipelineproject in the Siberian arctic.
The company has also teamed up with ConocoPhillips and pipeline owner KinderMorgan on a separate project to bring naturalgas from the Rocky Mountains to Ohio.
In the case of the Siberian gaspipelineproject, Moscow was well aware of the inordinate West European dependency on Soviet naturalgas supplies -- ultimately projected to exceed 60% of total European gas consumption -- which would have resulted from the successful completion of both strands of the twin 3, 600-mile pipelines connected to the West European gas grid.