US Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, asked Burns if "it would be fair to say" there are active discussions at such levels about how to use natural gas to assist in dealing with European reluctance to enact sanction over the Ukraine crisis, as well as with Ukraine.
"There certainly is," Burns responded during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
Voice of Russia, Reuters
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_06/US-mulling-ways-to-use-natural-gas-resources-in-Ukraine-crisis-official-0734/
6/3/14
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US Weighs Natural Gas Exports to Ukraine....
ReplyDeleteThe United States appears to be rethinking its aversion to natural gas exports so it could help meet Ukraine's energy needs and weaken Ukraine's dependency on Russia for its gas supply.
The top U.S. energy official, Ernest Moniz, said at an energy conference this week that he "would certainly welcome" discussions with congressional leaders about easing the country's current natural gas export restrictions that limit sales to countries that are not free trade partners.
He said the conflict in Ukraine, where Russian troops are occupying the country's Crimean peninsula, is "obviously a very, very serious and important situation" that merits considering whether energy exports should play a role in U.S. foreign policy.
For decades, the U.S. has been a large energy importer. In recent years, however, with the advance of hydraulic fracturing energy extraction, the U.S. has increasingly headed toward energy independence. By some accounts, the U.S. could surpass Russia this year as the world's largest natural gas producer and by next year Saudi Arabia as the biggest oil producer.
Russia now supplies about 70 percent of Ukraine's natural gas, but debt-ridden Kyiv has fallen more than $1.5 billion behind in its payments to Russia's state-owned Gazprom energy company. As a result, Moscow says that starting next month, it is ending the one-third discount on the cost of the gas it is shipping to Ukraine................http://www.voanews.com/content/us-weighs-natural-gas-exports-to-ukraine/1865780.html
6/3/14