This photo taken on Dec 18, 2022 shows equipment at Kovykta gas condensate field in Irkutsk, Russia. A new gas field and a new pipeline section were connected on Wednesday to Russia's Power of Siberia pipeline, indicating full completion of the major gas route. Photo:Xinhua

Russia became China's top oil supplier in January and February, shipping about 15.68 million tons of crude oil to the world's second-largest economy, data from China's General Administration of Customs (GAC) showed. 

Experts on Monday noted that the energy sector has become a ballast stone of the growing bilateral trade, and it is expected that the two nations would see more comprehensive cooperation in energy, from exploration and processing to logistics.

It is not the first time for Russia to top China's oil supplier list. In 2022, Russia shipped the most crude oil to China on a monthly basis in May and November. In terms of the whole year of 2022, Russia exported a total of 86.25 million tons of oil to China, ranking second after Saudi Arabia's 87.49 million tons, according to customs data.

Russia is also China's main source of natural gas and coal imports, and the "ballast stone" role of energy in bilateral trade has been further highlighted, Chinese newspaper the Economic Daily reported on Monday, citing Chinese Ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui.

According to the GAC data, China purchased 45.45 billion yuan ($6.6 billion) worth of liquefied natural gas and 26.73 billion yuan worth of natural gas from Russia in 2022.

In December 2022, a key construction project of the China-Russia east-route natural gas pipeline was completed after 28 months of building, which will allow Russian gas to cross the Yangtze River to reach East China's Shanghai. The whole pipeline is scheduled to provide China with 38 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas annually from 2024, according to Xinhua News Agency.

As the world's manufacturing powerhouse, China has been the largest energy buyer since 2010, with growing demand amid the country's ramped-up efforts to boost economic recovery, Li Xin, director of the Institute for Eurasian Studies at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times on Monday.

Russia is a major energy exporter, and it is expected that the two nations will broaden cooperation in the sector ranging from exploration and processing to other links along the whole industrial chain, Li said, noting that it will be win-win cooperation.

Based on robust energy cooperation, China and Russia have recorded comprehensive growth of trade in many sectors. For instance, agricultural trade surged 43 percent in 2022, according to Zhang.

The proportion of trade settlement in local currencies continued to grow as well, and the two nations are actively cultivating new growth drivers, such as joint development of 5G, cross-border e-commerce, digital economy, bio-medicine, green and low-carbon transformation, Zhang noted.

In 2022, bilateral trade hit a record high of $190.27 billion, an increase of 116 percent over 2012. China has been Russia's largest trading partner for 13 years in a row, and bilateral trade is expected to exceed $200 billion this year, Li said.