Today, as part of the 17th Session of the Working Party on Gas with the UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) Committee on Sustainable Energy, Geneva has hosted the Round Table on Securing Reliable Natural Gas Supply in the Context of the Sustainable Development in the UNECE Region.

Attending the Round Table was a Gazprom delegation led by Mr. Stanislav Tsygankov, Head of the Gazprom International Business Department.

In delivering his speech, Mr. Tsygankov highlighted the present-day situation in the European gas market and scrupulously analyzed the underlying arguments for the new Europe’s Energy Policy that had been promulgated by the European Commission on January 10, 2007 and considered quite controversial by a big number of the market players.

In particular, Mr. Tsygankov put the emphasis on the questionable initiatives to further reform the market by unbundling vertically integrated companies and reconsidering the role of long-term agreements in the liberalized market, with the Round Table participants’ attention drawn to the potential impacts on the investment climate in the European energy sector.

Mr. Tsygankov also pointed to the need of maintaining a more objective approach to issues surrounding reliable natural gas transmission across transit countries and underscored that “supply safety and security is impossible without clear responsibility sharing mechanisms in each segment of the gas chain from the wellhead to the end user”.