Report: Europe energy firms against new US anti-Russian sanctions

MOSCOW, Jul 20 (PRIME) -- Representatives of several large European energy companies stand against new anti-Russian sanctions prepared by the U.S., Handelsblatt daily reported late on Wednesday.

“From the European point of view, extra volumes of Russian natural gas are necessary, as our production volumes have started to slump,” Rainer Seele, CEO of Austrian energy company OMV, said as cited by the daily.

He also said that it is necessary to raise reliability of natural gas imports from Russia in order to guarantee attractive conditions for European consumers instead of threatening Russia’s exports.

Mattias Warnig, managing director of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline project operator Nord Stream AG, said that the new sanctions will have a significant impact on oil and gas supplies in general “from China to Western Europe.”

On June 15, the U.S. Senate voted for a bill that introduces a cut in the financing term for sanctioned Russian banks to 14 days and to sanctioned Russian oil and gas companies to 30 days. It also prohibits companies to invest more than $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 informational support for the construction.

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