Russia To Diversify Gas Supplies Over Disagreements With EU - Deputy Minister
Paris, 18 October: Russia is planning to diversify gas supplies by directing part of them to countries of the Asia-Pacific region due to the absence of the European Commission's response to Russia's proposals and the introduction of the third energy package in the EU, Deputy Energy Minister Anatoliy Yanovskiy said.
He said that cooperation with Europe had certain problems "linked to the application of provisions of the third energy package and to the fact that our proposals voiced in early 2010 to introduce exclusive or special rules to implement certain trans-border projects on gas and energy supplies to Europe from Russia have not received support from the European Commission so far".
"In these conditions we, of course, will update our general development plan for the gas industry. The goal of this updating will be to diversify the directions of gas supplies, including deliveries to countries of the Asia-Pacific region - Korea, China," Yanovskiy said.
He noted that diversification would also involve increasing the volumes of liquefied gas, which would boost flexibility in gas exports.
"We believe that several provisions of the third energy package directly contradict international commitments within the framework of both Russia-EU cooperation and investments protection agreements signed between Russia and many member-countries of the EU," the deputy minister said.
According to him, "discussions on these issues will be continued". (Passage omitted to end)
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