US promotes its energy companies to detriment of Europe’s interests, says Security Council
Security Council Assistant Secretary Alexander Abelin said that in the context of high import dependency of the Russian fuel and energy complex, domestic threats to the energy security aggravated
MOSCOW, May 16. /TASS/. The United States are brazenly lobbying their energy companies, acting to the detriment of other countries including their European allies, Assistant Secretary of the Russian Security Council Alexander Abelin told reporters.
"Blatant lobbying, impertinent pushing through of the American energy companies and providers’ interests is carried out by the US administration without looking back at the interests of even their closest allies in Europe," he pointed out. Abelin underlined that Washington’s sanctions against the Russian energy sector, particularly the ones aimed at the Nord Stream 2 project, LNG industry and introducing cutting-edge technologies of extracting the hard-to-reach hydrocarbon resources, are also the factors that escalate the threats to the Russian energy security.
According to the Security Council representative, these factors are considered in the latest version of the Russian Energy Security Doctrine. "The evaluation of the condition and prospects of the Russian energy sector, as well as the situation on the international energy markets showed that a number of new energy challenges and threats that Russia is facing have emerged as a result of the aggravated politicization of international relations," he underlined. "In particular, the situation is exacerbated by bolstering protectionist measures in national economies and discriminatory actions of other states against Russian companies, exporting energy sources."
According to Abelin, in the context of high import dependency of the Russian fuel and energy complex, domestic threats to the energy security aggravated. These threats cone from high physical and non-economic wear and tear of the significant part of manufacturing funds and energy infrastructure, low level of development and application of cutting-edge technologies, as well as lack of highly experienced workers to develop and apply them. "We still haven’t dealt with the issue of payment failures for the exported energy sources, the energy sector continues to be mired by high level of crime in, terror attack on critically important energy facilities persist," he added.
The Assistant Secretary of the Security Council emphasized that for the first time the new doctrine is based on the risk-oriented approach, which is aimed at identifying and forestalling the new risks and threats to the Russian energy security and allows to apply effective and preventive measures to neutralize them. "Such an approach will be implemented as a risk management system in the Russian energy security sphere," Abelin clarified.