Rais of Tatarstan takes part in a plenary session of St Petersburg International Gas Forum

On 1 October the Rais (Head) of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov took part in a plenary session of the St Petersburg International Gas Forum dedicated to the transformation of the natural gas world market. 

In his welcoming speech the Governor of St Petersburg Aleksandr Beglov stated that the North capital increases the amount of use of natural gas and said: “On the errand of the Russian President this year we will complete switching coal and fuel oil city boiler plants over to gas and other ecological kinds of fuel.”

In his turn the Chairman of the Gazprom Board Aleksey Miller said that today there is a transformation of the world gas market, the situation on which will be mostly defined by the intensification of Eurasian countries attitude to gas.

He also underlined that Western companies would prefer to have Russian gas back in European markets. ”Western countries traditionally consumed more than they produced, produce and will produce and they cannot reverse the trend as they do not have such deposits,” he said. 

Russian Minister of Energetics Nikolay Shulginov emphasized that Russia has not closed the Western direction for gas supply and the country is open for negotiations concerning the gas supply to Europe but is waiting for proposals from the buyer’s side. 

He also stated that some promising directions are supplying gas to Pakistan and India as well as swap supplies to Iran.

For more information see the TASS Information Agency site.