Patrushev affirms increased significance of Russian energy security amid sanctions
MOSCOW. Oct 31 (Interfax) - The Russian Security Council has urged higher effectiveness of the national oil and gas sector against the backdrop of Western sanctions.
"The oil and gas sector provides around 50% of the entire federal budget revenue. The significance of this sector of our economy has been growing amid Western sanctions imposed on Russia. Improvement of its efficiency and decriminalization of its activity through higher transparency of economic relations is becoming a priority," Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said.
"Given the mounting threats to Russia's national interests, energy security issues is becoming a major area of the national security policy," the Security Council press service quoted Patrushev to Interfax as saying on Friday.
The press service said that energy security of Siberia was recently discussed at a visiting conference Patrushev held in the Republic of Altai.
Siberia holds a special place in the Russian energy security as it contains over 80% of Russian coal reserves, 45% of the national hydro-energy potential and up to 13% of national oil and natural gas reserves, Patrushev said.
"Siberia not only supplies energy, mineral and timber resources to the domestic market but also exports them. The Siberian Federal District is actively implementing infrastructure projects, including the Power of Siberia pipeline, which will transport gas from the Yakutian and Irkutsk gas production centers to the Far East and China," the Russian Security Council secretary continued.
The Siberian Federal District is due to become a Russian leader in terms of coke, power plant coal, oil, gas and petrochemical production, Security Council press secretary Igor Shvytkin quoted Patrushev as saying.
"In spite of the developed energy network and sizable potential of the fuel and energy sector, the district still encounters economic and energy security threats. It is necessary to improve the quality of strategic planning in the electric power industry's development," Patrushev said.
"Ways to solve the problem of poor inter-systemic connection between the eastern part of the Siberian unified energy system, which has a surplus of electric power, and the western part suffering from energy deficits, should be considered. This is the cause of electric power deficits in a number of district constituents. The deficit is especially large in the Republics of Altai and Tuva," the secretary said.
He mentioned the inadequate fulfillment of regional energy saving and efficiency programs as being among Siberia's important problems.
"Hundreds of Siberian towns are still powered by local diesel generators. The Russian Energy Ministry should closely interact with district constituent territories to solve these problems," Patrushev said.
Natural resources are vast but the district has the country's lowest gasification levels, less than 7%, he said. 'There are no gas grids in enormous parts of Buryatia, Tuva, Khakassia and the Trans-Baikal territory. Nikolai Patrushev said that a main reason was gas debts of consumers and the failure of constituent territories to meet their commitments in the gasification program they were implementing together with Gazprom ," Shvytkin said.
The Russian Security Council secretary pointed to electric power grid problems - more than 1,600 kilometers of power grids and about 600 transformer substations in the district are not serviced, which is a source of accidents and disruptions to the power supply, he said.
"Some regions of Siberia have yet to categorize and issue passports for fuel and energy sector facilities in line with the legislation. About 340 fuel and energy facilities in the district are not protected, and four of them belong to the medium-risk category," Shvytkin quoted Patrushev as saying.