INTERVIEW: EU forces US to lift sanctions from some energy projects

BRUSSELS, Aug 17 (PRIME) -- The new U.S. sanctions against Russia have been lifted from a some energy projects with Russian participation thanks to E.U.’s efforts, Russian Ambassador to the E.U. Vladimir Chizhov said in an interview with PRIME on Thursday.

Earlier in August, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a bill introducing additional sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea. The bill prohibits companies to invest more than U.S. $1 million in a single payment or more than $5 million during the course of a year in construction of Russian export pipelines, as well as provision of goods, services, technologies and information support for the construction.

After Trump has signed the bill, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel called the new sanctions illegitimate and said that Washington wants to clear a share of the European energy market for U.S. exports. European Commission’s President Jean-Claude Juncker said that Brussels will protect economic interests of the E.U.

Chizhov said that the Europeans “rounded off some rough corners”, one of the examples is Russia’s participation in multinational energy projects, which was raised from 10% in the initial edition to 33% finally.

“Although this is not about the Nord Stream 2 and other large projects,” he added.

The new anti-Russian sanctions serve commercial interests of the U.S. companies, Chizov said.

“(The law) reads that the U.S. administration needs to make an effort to provide LNG to the European market. What for? It says frankly: to create jobs. This is the whole political story,” he said.

He hopes that Europe “will have enough political courage, will and common sense” to reject LNG purchases from the U.S.

The U.S. policy to impose its liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe contradicts with market laws and is disadvantageous both for the U.S. business and the E.U., the official said.

“According to today’s estimates, the U.S.-made LNG will cost about U.S. $250 per 1,000 cubic meters on the European market. This is unprofitable for Europeans as gas from Russia is about two times cheaper. But this is unprofitable for the U.S. business as well, because the United States can sell the gas to Asia or Latin America for $300 and more.”

Chizhov also said that the United States cannot replace Russian gas exports to Europe because it has only one LNG loading terminal in Louisiana while it will take time to build additional facilities, the country does not produce enough gas to satisfy Europe’s demand and Europe does not have enough terminals to receive LNG.

The official said that the Nord Stream 2 and the Turkish Stream projects will not fully stop gas transit through the territory of Ukraine.

“There are countries that are 100% dependent on the transit. Moldova is an example. It has and will have no other ways of receiving gas than through Ukraine in the foreseeable future.”

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