Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan all have safety cushions of income from oil and gas to help in the hard times of benchmark Brent crude under $50 a barrel.

Russia supplied a record amount of crude oil to China in September, surpassing Saudi Arabia for the second time as the top seller to the Asian giant, customs data showed, boosted by demand from independent refiners.

Pakistan and Russia signed a major agreement to build a 1,100-km gas pipeline from Lahore to Karachi, that will take cooperation between the two Cold War-era adversaries “to a new level”.

Russia has for years been muscling in on Asian markets where Saudi Arabia was once the unchallenged dominant supplier. But now Riyadh is retaliating in Moscow's backyard of Europe with aggressive price discounting.

Russian energy giant OAO Gazprom became the latest emerging-market borrower to sell debt to international investors, taking advantage of growing expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve will delay raising interest rates.

China’s $40 billion Silk Road Fund said it would finance part of the project, a development Total CEO Patrick Pouyanné called “a clear commitment by China” in an interview Wednesday. The price paid for Silk Road’s 9.9% stake in Yamal wasn’t disclosed.

The agreement concerning Nord Stream-2 represents a success for Russia; it accomplishes the strategic goals of Russian gas policy in Europe (main - ceasing gas exports through Ukraine), despite the difficult political relations with the EU, the Western sanctions regime, and Brussels’ declaration that it will diversify the EU’s sources of supply and reduce its dependence on Russian gas.

Novak said the cost of shale oil production - between $45 and $60 per barrel - is seen as a benchmark for oil prices. He expects prices to be between $50 and $60 per barrel on average this year - in line with Russia's budget forecasts.

The two PMs were reacting to a preliminary agreement between Russian giant Gazprom and Western energy concerns including BASF, E.ON, ENGIE, OMV and Shell on doubling the transport capacity of Nord Stream in early September.

Top-flight Western firms such as Shell, E.On, BASF, and Engie (formerly GDF Suez) have banded together with Russia’s Gazprom to double the capacity of Nord Stream, with hopes it will be operational by late 2019.