China's Silk Road Fund to buy into Russian LNG project

BEIJING -- China's Silk Road Fund, a medium- to long-term investment fund, will buy 9.9 percent of a Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) project.

The Silk Road Fund said Friday that it entered into a set of binding agreements with Russia-based natural gas producer Novatek on Thursday in the presence of Premier Li Keqiang and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

The Fund will buy 9.9 percent stake in Novatek's Yamal LNG project and provide a 15-year loan of around 730 million euros ($790 million) to finance the project. The deal will not go ahead until an intergovernmental agreement comes into force.

Located on the Yamal Peninsula, the Yamal project is the world's largest natural gas development, liquefaction, transportation and sale project, with a designed annual output of 28 billion cubic meters.

The Silk Road Fund was set up in December 2014 to promote investment and financing cooperation between China and other countries, serving the China-proposed "Belt and Road" initiative, which encompasses the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.