Chinese Vice Premier, ang Qishan announced the launch at a ceremony today in Mohe in China’s north-east Heilongjiang province, where the transnational pipeline starts.
In April 2009 agreed to lend $10 billion to Russian oil pipeline Transneft and another $15 billion to Rosneft in exchange for 300 million tones (2.2 billion barrels) of Russian oil to be transported over the pipeline over 20 years.
Russia started construction of the pipeline to China in late April.
China currently receives most of its Russian oil supplies via rail.
