RusEnergy

05.12.2006 - MosNews - The head of the European Commission delegation in Russia Marco Franco expressed concern that in the future Russia won’t be able to fulfill its energy source export obligations. He spoke on Tuesday, Dec. 5, at the conference titled “Factors of energy stability of Russian economy”. Franco was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying: “Forecasts say that Russian energy source production will be insufficient to satisfy both the domestic demand and export deliveries.” The European Commission official declared that by 2030 the European Union will depend on energy imports to satisfy 70 percent of its needs. By 2020 the EU will need additional 200 million tons of natural gas in oil equivalent as compared with its current needs. Meanwhile, Franco noted, Russia’s energy strategy foresees that by 2020 export deliveries of gas will be increased by only 50 million tons of oil equivalent. “We have 150 million tons uncovered,” Franco said. He noted that the European Union plans to increase the energy efficiency of its economy, diversify the supply routes and concentrate on development of alternative energy sources. However, Franco believes that Russia too has to increase investments in production of energy resources. “The problem is not that monopolies invest insufficiently in new production, the problem is that the funds of outside investors have not been attracted,” said the representative of the European Commission. “It seems that in the future attraction of foreign financial resources in production, especially in gas production, will be a very important issue,” Marco Franco has said. In connection with this, he expressed his belief that the key issue for Russia is to ratify the European Energy Charter. At the same time he noted that Russia is trying to preserve its control over natural resources and said that “this is also natural”.