At a meeting of finance ministers form the G8 group of leading industrialized nations, Russia robustly defended its record as an energy supplier and reassured other members that it would remain a stable and reliable exporter.
The meeting in St Petersburg comes ahead of the full G8 summit next month, where energy supply issues are likely to dominate the agenda.
Russian officials have moved to defuse tensions over the issue of gas supply that have been bubbling under the surface since Gazprom cut supplies to the Ukraine at the start of 2006.
We have quite stable growth of [energy] supply, but we are encountering a demand shock, said Russia’s finance minister Alexei Kudrin.
However, pressure from the EU for Russia to ratify the Energy Charter agreement that would open up access to its pipeline is still making little headway. The Russians say that more work must be done on the treaty to make it acceptable to Moscow.
The Russian delegation to the summit also added that the country needed security of demand and, to that end, backed Gazprom’s efforts to increase its presence in the European downstream sphere.