Reports from China suggest that PetroChina would take an upstream stake in the Siberian Tomskneft and Yurubchenskoye fields, where BP could emerge as a strategic partner to complement the oil major’s interest in the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline. The pipeline is intended to deliver a rate of return of 15% and boost PetroChina’s oil sales volume and earnings before interests, taxes, depreciation, and amortization by 8% and 6% in 2005, respectively. Yukos is Russia’s second-largest producer, and supplies the bulk of China’s crude imports from Russia, which increased by 65% year-on-year to 2.27 million metric tons in the first 10 months of 2002.