MOSCOW, April 16. /TASS/. Russian economy will require about 4 billion tons of new profitable oil reserves and 11 trillion cubic meters of gas to meet its needs until 2050, head of the Federal Agency for Mineral Resources Evgeny Petrov said at a session of the National Oil and Gas Forum.

"Taking into account the needs of the global economy, the economy of our country, on average by 2050 it will be necessary to involve new profitable reserves of 4 billion tons of oil and 11 trillion cubic meters of gas," he said.

According to Petrov, despite forecasts that oil consumption will decline by 2030 and even by 2050, fossil fuels are here to stay. He noted that this also applies to coal, the consumption of which continues to grow.

"There is a lot of speculations about coal: that we are abandoning coal, that it is time to write it off. However, if we look at our colleagues from China, today fundamentally new approaches have emerged in terms of generating electricity from coal - it is environmentally friendly," he said.

The head of the regulator also recalled that last a subordinate institute of the Federal Agency for Mineral Resources last year had revalued oil reserves for all fields in Western Siberia. Based on its results, the geological reserves of hard-to-recover oil in the region’s fields are estimated at approximately 970 billion tons, he said.