Russia to continue increasing share on global LNG market despite sanctions - Putin

MOSCOW. Dec 19 (Interfax) - The U.S. sanctions against the Russian LNG industry are hurting it, but Russia will find a solution, like with other energy resources, and will increase its share on the global LNG market, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at his annual press conference.

The U.S. sanctions are a method of unfair competition, and this circumstance will eventually turn out to be harmful for the United States itself, he said.

The United States is afraid of competition on the LNG market and therefore is using "means of political struggle for unfair competition," Putin said.

"The well-known company Novatek is not a leader, other countries, including the States, produce more of this LNG. But we are growing, but they are trying to prevent us from growing. It's an unfair way of deterring competition," he said.

"And it's eventually bad for them [the United States], too, because if they fight competition using such methods, non-economic methods, they will cease to be competitive themselves. No, it won't happen tomorrow, but it will happen sometime, if it continues," Putin said.

Putin said the sanctions are "an interference" and "create problems," but said he is confident that they cannot "fully kill." [The U.S. authorities have said expressly that their goal is to freeze Novatek's Arctic LNG 2 Project].

"They will inflict some damage, harm on us, but there is no doubts that we will find a solution, like to other situations with energy resources supply. Bearing in mind that the needs for energy resources are still growing and will be growing in terms of global economic development. This is not our information, this is information of global economic institutions. It's just that this product will be in demand on the global markets. We will continue doing that and we will be increasing our share on the global LNG markets," Putin said.