Azerbaijan, Baku, 18 November / Trend corr. A.Badalova/ Russia receives extremely conflicting signals from the European partners concerning whether Europe needs the Russian gas, Alexander Medvedev, general director of Gazpromeksport Open Joint Stock Company (OJSC), said at the sixth international forum Russian Gaz-2008 in Moscow on 18 November.
"The European Union's (EU) action plan on energy security and solidarity, which was publicized last week, is one more evidence of such uncertainty, said Medvedev, whose speech was lively aired via Vesti TV channel.
"Russia is one of major gas and coal providers of the EU ad the second oil provider after OPEC. We are surprised that import of energy resources are not regarded important at priority system of new energy policy," the general director of Gazpromeksport said.
In accordance with forecasts of the European Commission, the whole gas import of the EU will drop by 14bln cu.m to 284bln cu.m in 2020 as compared to 298bln cu.m in 2005 with nominal oil price at $100 per barrel (under forecasts of the International Energy Agency, this price will be in power at least in two years).
The European Commission forecasts that need in additional import will slightly rise by 39bln cu.m a year with nominal cost at $51 per barrel and the whole import will amount to 337bln cu.m a year in 2020.
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