HOUSTON, March 7. /TASS/. Development of economic cooperation between Russia and the United States has a high upside potential and may reduce tensions in bilateral relations, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Tuesday at CERAWeek conference.
"We see there is a high interest in projects in Russia and a high upside potential for cooperation between our countries [Russia and the US - TASS]," Novak said.
Cooperation in the economic sphere may contribute to overcoming political differences between nations, he said.
CERAWeek conference is one of the largest forums of the global oil and gas industry.
Investment barriers
Russia will expend efforts to remove barriers to foreign investors, Novak emphasized:
"We’ll be consistently working at removing barriers to investments, and our today’s participation [in CERAWeek - TASS] and the presence of many heads of big companies demonstrates it".
Representatives of Russian companies - Novatek, Sibur, Gazprom Neft, Transneft, Zarubezhneft, Rosgeologia - are attending the conference as part of the Russian delegation headed by Novak.
Russia's oil reserves
Russia’s conventional oil reserves amount to 14 bln tonnes and tight oil reserves equal 10 bln tonnes:
"Russia has tremendous advantages for foreign investors. Russia’s oil reserves are among the largest in the world - about 14 bln tonnes, and about 10 bln tonnes more when taking into consideration unconventional, the so-called ‘hard-to-recover’ reserves," the minister noted.
Such a resource base "creates an upside potential for production," Novak said. Russia’s energy strategy provides for reaching the oil rate plateau of 500-550 mln tonnes annually, he said.
Furthermore, Russian gas reserves are about 40 trillion cubic meters, the minister added.