MOSCOW, December 30. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced an unprecedented growth in energy supplies from Russia to China and shared his plans to increase gas pumping in 2023.

"Energy supplies have reached unprecedented levels, and joint efforts are underway to build capacity in the sectors of hydrocarbon production and processing," he said on Friday during video conference talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. According to Putin, "this year, Russia has become one of the leaders in oil exports to China."

"As of today, we are second in pipeline gas supplies to China and fourth in imported LNG (liquefied natural gas); 13.8 bln cubic meters were supplied via the eastern route by December 1, and the surplus of daily contractual obligations reached 18% in December," Putin stated. "We will boost the volume of pumping even more next year," he said.

In November, Russia exported 7.8 mln metric tons of oil to China and became China's largest supplier of this type of fuel. According to the data published on Tuesday by China’s General Administration of Customs, Russia surpassed Saudi Arabia last month, the volume of deliveries of which amounted to 6.6 mln metric tons. Compared to October, Russia increased exports to China by only 1%, while exports from Saudi Arabia fell by almost 17%.

Deliveries of Russian oil to China in January-November increased by 10.2% year-on-year and amounted to 79.78 mln metric tons. At the same time, in terms of supplies for 11 months of 2022, Russia is slightly behind Saudi Arabia, which exported 80.38 mln metric tons of oil to China during this period.

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping spoke earlier on Friday via a video conference call. China and Russia should ramp up cooperation in the trade-economic and energy sphere, Xi Jinping said.

"Our countries should proactively build up productive pragmatic cooperation in trade and economy, energy and financial sphere, and in the sphere of agriculture, use existing working mechanisms and channels for the dialog for this purpose," the Chinese leader said, cited by CCTV.

Beijing and Moscow should interact, taking advantages of each other in consideration, Xi Jinping said. Russia and China should not confine themselves in traditional energy spheres and should promote in parallel joint projects in the segment of alternative low-carbon energy sources.