A senior official of British Petroleum (BP) said Thursday in Beijing that BP was considering acting as intermediator on China-Russia oil and gas cooperation

A senior official of British Petroleum (BP) said Thursday in Beijing that BP was considering acting as intermediator on China-Russia oil and gas cooperation. However, Ian M. Smale, BP vice president and global head of mergers and acquisitions, said at an international summit on merger and acquisition that it was just a business idea of BP and there was no specific project in this regard so far. An analysis report released by BP in November said that the fastest growth of energy consumption would occur in China in the next 50 years and the energy demand in the country increased by 20percent last year. The BP report also showed that Russia currently has natural gas reserves of 48 trillion cubic meters, the largest in the world. Smale said BP attaches great importance to the partnership with Chinese oil and gas companies and BP understood Chinese companies' interest in Russia's energy resources. BP is one of the major petroleum and oil chemical groups in the world. It has poured over four billion US dollars into China since it was allowed into the Chinese market in 1973 and plans to further invest 2.5 billion yuan in the next five years, according to an inside source from BP China.