Putin: Russia Is Ready To Promote Energy Market Stability In Pacific Rim

Vladimir Putin has pronounced in favour of Russia's participation in constructing a new energetic configuration of the Asian-Pacific region. He said about it at his Friday meeting with the participants in the APEC business summit in Shanghai. The Russian leader referred to a forecast saying that the share of the Pacific Rim in the world energy consumption would grow by up to 45% till 2020. The split between the region's own energy resources' stocks and its needs will increase, and Russia is ready to participate in joint work on providing for energy security in the Pacific Rim. "Russia is ready to promote long-term stability of the energy market." "The current oil and gas stocks in Russia's eastern regions allow not only to cover the internal demand, but also export large batches of energy resources," according to Putin. He said that an agreement on constructing the 2,400 km-long Russia-China oil pipe had been signed a month before. "Our neighbour will receive 20 million tons of oil annually, and up to 30 million in prospect," according to the Russian president. Putin said that the major Russian Gazprom company took part in the tender on construction of the East-West gas-pipe in China. The project of transporting gas from the Kovytkinskoye deposit in the Irkutsk region to China and Korea is under development. Oil and gas projects on the Sakhalin shelf are being realized on production-share terms. Our western partners design to construct the world largest liquefaction plant in the framework of these projects. Virtually all the Pacific Rim countries may become consumers of this production. "I think that the rich experience of Russian companies in oil and gas prospecting, development of gas infrastructure and employment of new boring techniques may prove useful to our partners", said Putin. According to him, energy links from Russia to Japan, Korea, China, and other countries might become parts of the new energetic configuration. "In the similar way, the Russian leader continued, we see the joint development of innovation reactor technology and natural safety nuclear cycle, projects concerning application spheres of alternative energy sources." "Many of these initiatives require substantial, if not immense funding." "We would like to count upon interaction with both traditional financial centres in Europe and the US and the Asian banking community". "I think, we will have enough work in the sphere of energy for at least the next hundred years", Putin emphasized.