Moscow - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in Moscow on Monday to seek a long-delayed deal on energy ties with Russia and discuss the global financial crisis.

Wen will hold talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev in his two-day visit to the capital before heading to oil-rich Kazakhstan for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security grouping of Central Asian states.

The dip in oil prices and global worry over long-term energy supplies, industry analyst say, has paved the way for a breakthrough in long-deadlocked energy relations.

Russia - the world's second largest producer of crude - and China - whose energy demands seem to be growing exponentially - have suspended energy talks over tough pricing disputes.

But diplomatic rapprochement between the two giants and meetings between top officials between recent weeks have given both sides cause to hail Wen's trip as the harbinger finally to seal a deal.

"Our companies, ministries and agencies, which are involved in the energy dialogue, have done good work recently in optimizing our cooperation," Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who oversees Russia's energy sector, was quoted by news agency Itar-tass as saying.

"Bilateral energy cooperation is about to reach a new level," he said on the eve on Wen's trip.

Russia's Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said after talks with China's top energy official Zhang Goubao this week that the main outlines of an agreement should settled in the next month.

The deal calls for Russia to extend its 4,700-kilometre Trans- Siberian pipeline to China's huge energy-guzzling market.

But Beijing has bargained hard for lower prices on Russian oil and gas exports before it opens its market, and while Moscow has balked at loosing its profit margins the drop in oil prices may have levelled the dialogue.

The two recently removed symbolic diplomatic roadblocks such as resolving a Cold War-era border dispute.

Wen was also set to discuss the financial squeeze with Russian leaders as he makes his trip just after a summit of Asian and European heads of state in Beijing on cooperating amid the global turmoil. (dpa)