The new EU regulation aimed at restricting gas supplies from Russia and Belarus will not be able to affect Russia’s economy but will boomerang its initiators, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
“This is another attempt to create a quasi-legal scheme for making our country’s economy less competitive. They will not succeed in it. Their previous attempts were not successful, neither will be the current attempts. The matter is that most anti-Russia measures assumed by the EU, including in the energy sector, boomerang their initiators,” she told a briefing.
The issue is about the EU’s work on the draft of regulation enabling member states to impose restrictions against natural gas supplies, including LNG, from Russia and Belarus, at the national level, the diplomat added.
This measure is “discriminatory against our country,” she said.
Amid limited supply of energy resources, including LNG, coupled with outstripping demand for hydrocarbons from the Asian-Pacific region, “any bans by EU countries on imports of Russian gas will only lead to geographic redirection of Russian exports to new fast-growing markets,” Zakharova noted.
“Meanwhile, in case of LNG, due to its mobility such a scenario seems most realistic,” she said, adding that “Russia does not plan to abandon its ambitious plans in the field of LNG, with the development of respective infrastructure being one of priorities in the energy sector.”
Moscow intends to boost annual LNG production from the current 33 to 100 mln tons per year, the diplomat concluded.
