Russian Energy Ministry Draws up 10-year Program of Energy Cooperation with Japan

The Russian Energy Ministry has prepared a program for ten-year co-operation in the field of energy between Russia and Japan, a RIA Novosti correspondent quotes the ministerial press service on Friday.

It follows from the document that the sides view energy co-operation as a strategically important sphere of Russian-Japanese relations. In drawing up this program, attention was paid to the guidelines of the Program for Deepening Trade-and-Economic Co-operation between the Russian Federation and Japan, concluded at the highest level in Tokyo in September 2000.

The areas of co-operation are the oil industry, oil refining, oil and gas transportation, power engineering, reduction of gas emissions into the air.

Supposedly, co-operation in the oil and gas production will be continued within the framework of the Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-2 projects, the laying of oil and gas pipelines in Russia's Far East and Eastern Siberia, the completion of construction of the Bureiskaya hydropower station, modernisation and construction of thermal electricity plants in the Far Eastern and other regions of Russia.