On June 18th, Alexander Medvedev, vice president of Gazprom OAO, said that Gazprom would receive an advance payment of $25 billion from China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC). ANBOUND research team believes that this unprecedented natural gas trading between China and Russia and their previous crude oil trading have the same mode. China pays in advance and gives Russia the initiative. However, when it comes to a long-term contract, the initiative is probably more important than price. What's more, pricing mechanism might also worth worrying about.