Translated material
Dvorkovich: Russia is leaving Europe to Asia
Russia changes gas priorities - it goes from Europe to Asia. New Russian contracts with Asian consumers marked the beginning of Moscow with traditional energy markets in Europe, said Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. He noted that the reasons for changing the strategy were the decreasing demand for gas and the constant regulatory pressure exerted there on Russia.
“If Europe prefers energy sources that are not environmentally friendly, this is the decision of Europe. Everything is fine. There is demand in other regions of the world, ”said Dvorkovich.
The export of Gazprom in the EU last year has significantly decreased, partly due to the fact that European consumers preferred cheap imports of coal from the United States.
Over the past decades, Russia has been the largest power supplier in Europe. But at the end of last year, the European Union, which receives about a quarter of gas from Gazprom, suspected the concern of abusing a dominant position in the Central and Eastern Europe market and began in September an antimonopoly investigation against the concern. The main claim of European buyers is to bind the formula of the price of Russian gas to the cost of oil, customers want a greater orientation towards spotto gas quotes.
Russia will continue to remain a “safe and stable partner” of Europe and will supply as much gas as necessary, but Moscow sees more prospects in Asia, Dvorkovich said.
Deputy Prime Minister Dvorkovich noted that the liberalization of LNG exports, the beginning of which President Putin stated last week, will accelerate the development of three large projects Gazprom, Rosneft and Novatek by increasing competition. The companies have already signed several agreements with customers of LNG: this opens up the way to the free export of liquefied gas without the mediation of Gazprom, as provided for by law now. The Gazprom monopoly can be partially canceled in the fall. The decision to liberalize exports “will bring us to this market at the right time,” said Deputy Prime Minister. He added that the companies will provide a permit for export LNG “From Project to Project”.
However, the government has not yet planned the supply of LNG to Europe to prevent competition with Gazprom’s pipeline supplies in its main market, the Deputy Prime Minister noted.
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