Tokyo will withdraw its offer to help finance an $11.5bn oil pipeline from Siberia to Russia's Pacific coast if Moscow pursues a plan to build a spur to China first, Japan's trade minister said.
After years of wrangling with Japan and China, Russia announced last December that it would build a 4,100km pipeline to Perevoznaya on the Pacific coast, from where oil could be exported by ship to several countries, including Japan.
The decision was considered a coup for Tokyo, which had wooed Moscow with offers to help finance the project and extend technical co-operation.
But Shoichi Nakagawa, Japan's trade minister, said in an interview with the FT this week that Moscow had raised the possibility of building the pipeline in two stages, and running a spur from Skovorodino in eastern Siberia to China.
FT.com
