BEIJING, October 11 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and China have confirmed readiness to boost cooperation in energy industry, including gas and coal mining, a source in the Russian delegation said Sunday.

At the fifth round of Russian-Chinese energy talks in China's capital Beijing on Sunday, Russia was represented by Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, and China by deputy premier Wang Qishan.

The source said the sides exchanged roadmaps on gas cooperation and discussed the agreement on Russian gas supplies to China between energy giant Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), to be signed in Beijing during Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's visit October 13-14.

A memorandum on Russian-Chinese cooperation in the natural gas sphere was signed in June, during Chinese President Hu Jintao's official visit to Russia.

In April, during the fourth round of the Russian-Chinese energy talks in Beijing, the two countries signed an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the oil sphere, which will be in force for the next 23 years.

In October 2008, Russia and China reached an agreement to build a Chinese leg of the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) oil pipeline, which is designed to pump up to 1.6 million barrels of crude per day from Siberia to Russia's Far East and to energy-hungry China and the Asia-Pacific region. The construction is underway and is expected to be completed by late 2010.

Russia and China are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), founded in 2001, together with ex-Soviet Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

A meeting of the SCO Council of heads of government will take place in Beijing on October 14. Russia's Putin will attend.