China and Russia deepened their energy ties yesterday with a second blockbuster deal that lessens Russian reliance on Europe and would secure almost a fifth of the gas supplies China needs by the end of the decade. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed the preliminary gas-supply agreement in Beijing the day before U.S. President Barack Obama arrived in the Chinese capital for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. The deal is slightly smaller than the $400 billion accord reached earlier this year, shortly after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Russian oil firm OAO Gazprom is negotiating the supply of as much as 30 billion cubic meters of gas annually from developments in West Siberia to China over 30 years, it said yesterday. At the same time, another Russian producer, OAO Rosneft, agreed to sell a 10 percent stake in a Siberian unit to state-owned China National Petroleum […]