OREANDA-NEWS. October 23, 2012. Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting of the Commission for Strategic Development of the Fuel and Energy Sector and Environmental Security. The issues discussed included draft Energy Security Doctrine, the current trends in production, processing and marketing of natural gas, and the prospects of electric power cooperation between Russia and the European Union.

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PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Good afternoon, colleagues,

This is the second meeting of the Commission for Strategic Development of the Fuel and Energy Sector and Environmental Security. Our first meeting held in July 2012 showed that this is an interesting and useful format. We have a new venue for deep, multifaceted discussions of key, strategic matters pertaining to energy sector’s development.

Our today’s agenda consists of three main issues.

First, we will discuss the draft Doctrine of Russia's Energy Security, which was prepared by the Energy Ministry. This document aims to address a wide range of tasks, including ensuring a reliable supply of energy to consumers, innovative development of the fuel and energy sector, energy efficiency of all sectors of the Russian economy and non-discriminatory access of our exporters to foreign markets.

Regular renewal of enterprises’ production assets and maintaining these assets in a safe and efficient condition are our unquestionable priorities.

We will formulate strategic planning documents on the basis of the Doctrine and implement a long-term energy security policy. The Doctrine outlines a system of indicators for the assessment of key groups of internal and external risks. Today, we will conduct a comprehensive analysis of the Doctrine’s provisions, and I think it should be adopted in November.

In the future it will be necessary to monitor and assess the main indicators outlined in the Doctrine, thus ensuring control over the situation in the energy sector so that timely decisions are made on strengthening our country’s energy security.

The second item on our agenda is also directly related to energy security and the long-term prospects of strengthening Russia's position in the global energy markets. I am talking about current production trends and the proactive response to these trends in production, processing and sale of natural gas, which we will talk about today.

In recent years, we have seen a change in the energy market configuration. There is no need to explain this to you; you are all aware of the situation and understand what is happening. European countries, for example, are consistently working to create a common gas market. They are diversifying their sources of supply and adopting internal decisions that are not always coordinated with their main partners and are not always right, in my opinion, from the point of view of international law, but such decisions are made. We are in dialogue with our partners, and I hope that we will reach an acceptable consensus, but nevertheless we must consider these trends.

There is tough competition among gas exporters for the long-term and short-term contracts. However, energy consumption is rapidly growing in the Asia-Pacific region: China, Japan, which has increased its share of hydrocarbons since the Fukushima tragedy, India, and Russia’s other eastern neighbours are large and promising consumers. Given the existing transport infrastructure in Russia, this opens up new opportunities for the exporters of domestic energy resources.