RusEnergy

7 December 2006 RBC News – Russia will be increasing its gas exports until 2050, Economy Minister German Gref said at a meeting with Latin American ambassadors in Moscow on Wednesday. He said domestic demand for oil products and natural was growing, increasing by 7 percent over the past six months. “If we synchronize investment and the market, there will be no danger of interruption in gas supplies,” he said. Gref said Russia would also expand oil exports until 2020-2025, but the supplies would be reducing by about 1 percent a year after 2025 unless new reserves were discovered. “Russia will remain the world’s biggest supplier of oil and gas until 2050,” he stressed. The price of oil was expected to be between $45 and $55 per barrel in the medium term, the Economy Minister said. The price was unlikely to fall below $45 or rise above $60 per barrel, he noted. “If the price rises above $60, economic restrictions will come into effect. $60 to $70 per barrel would be an extreme price,” the Economy Minister added. “Russia wants to use all of its resources to provide the world with energy. This is in our best interests, allowing us to use the profits to diversify our economy,” Gref said. Gref said earlier that the price of natural gas on the domestic market would rise above $100 per 1,000 cubic meters by 2011. There will be no sharp price rises before the 2008 presidential elections, but industrial consumers will have to pay $90 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas in 2009.