SOCHI, September 15. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the country has successfully recovered its extensive know-how and expertise in the energy sector, noting that plans are now in the works for commissioning world-class enterprises in the near future.
Speaking at a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, the Russian president told his colleague about his recent visit to "two major construction sites, for gas and gas-to-chemicals [facilities]." "I would like to say a word about [sanctions] restrictions: European companies have refused to supply us with equipment, perhaps calculating that we lack the relevant competencies. But, all of our know-how has be resuscitated; we have shifted the schedule slightly <…> by several months, and huge, world-class enterprises are slated to go online in the near future," Putin stressed.
"While those who have been compelled - and I should point out that our [erstwhile] European partners have said that they were forced to wind down their work with us - they have simply incurred losses and suffered lost profits on a grand scale," the president noted. "Moreover, some major [European] high-tech companies have had to cut staff by 50%, by 70%," Putin added. "We are recovering; we are developing additional engineering know-how here, which is a very good thing," he stressed.
On September 13, Putin visited the Amur Gas Processing Plant near Svobodny, Amur Region, in the Russian Far East, where he was briefed on the innovative workarounds applied in building the Amur Gas Chemical Complex necessitated by European partners’ refusal to supply equipment for the project. The complex’s general director, Alexey Vereshchagin, said that, although the project implementation schedule had been adjusted slightly, the enterprise was successfully coping with all challenges.