Russian gas exports helping Asia & Europe to transition to cleaner energy – Kirill Dmitriev

Russia will continue to be the biggest player on the global energy market with plans to increase natural gas deliveries to Europe and Asia, according to the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriev.

"We believe gas is very ecologically friendly. It produces 45 percent less emissions than coal and 30 percent less than oil," he said at the "Global Energy Challenge" session of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

According to Dmitriev, Russia accounts for 20 percent of the world's gas supplies, and will continue to increase them. "We expect to grow gas exports by 34 percent in the next 20 years, while oil exports will grow only around 12 percent."

Dmitriev pointed out that Russia has "built great infrastructure to supply gas to Asia, which definitely needs it."

"And so we are helping Asia transition to cleaner energy through gas and frankly through our pipelines to Europe including Nord Stream 2, we are helping Europe to also transition to cleaner energy."

He added that Russia is "not very happy with sanctions on Nord Stream 2 because we believe those are the sanctions on Europe's transition to a more ecologically safe energy market, but that's a separate topic."

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