Natural Resources committee  Well, as you know, here the Republicans are very strongly in favour of exports of LNG, and I presume that this will become government policy. I see Canada and the U.S. as acting in parallel. Currently, the import share of the EU is only 10% LNG. I do not see any reason for it n

Natural Resources committee  I have a similar segment in my written statement. This is exactly what I think. Canada can simply declare that Canada in the medium term is prepared to export LNG to eastern Europe and Ukraine. That would have a positive impact on its own, and it would shake up the Kremlin a litt

Natural Resources committee  Yes. Ukraine has signed the first part of an EU association agreement, the political part. After the presidential elections probably in June, they will sign the economic part of it, which is a free trade agreement, also the substantial assistance agreement. Membership would come

Natural Resources committee  Yes, on Transnistria, I was there one and a half years ago. It's of course a nasty dictatorship. Russia had a referendum there in 2006 for annexation to Russia with 96% majority. It doesn't mean anything. It's a pure dictatorship. President Putin has all the legal pre-conditions

Natural Resources committee  That is a good question. What is happening is it's not being produced. Russia does not have much possibility of storing gas at home, so Gazprom production has fallen. Gazprom is also beaten by the independent produced Novatek that is much more efficient. Gazprom's share of the

Natural Resources committee  Yes. Gazprom is extremely poorly managed and Gazprom has missed the LNG revolution. Russia is producing LNG on Sakhalin, but that's essentially a Shell project and not a Gazprom project, even if they have muscled themselves in and taken a slight majority of it. They have miss

Natural Resources committee  Well, the bigger problem, which you have touched on, is what Russian policy is towards Ukraine as a whole. We have just seen that Russia has annexed Crimea. That came as a complete surprise, like a bolt from a clear sky. Nobody really expected that Russia would do it. We do expec

Natural Resources committee  The big point here is that it's the greatest vulnerability. Russia wants to poke up trouble in Ukraine, and nothing is more effective in that regard. Russian exports to Ukraine are about $12 billion a year, so this is a big impact that Russia can have. Of course, you don't store

Natural Resources committee  Basically, not much. I agree very much with what Vitalii Dem’ianiuk said here before. Ukraine is moving toward independence from Russia simply because the relationships are so bad. Economically, you can say this doesn't make much sense. Russia has plenty of gas, and it can prod

Natural Resources committee  Thank you.

Natural Resources committee  I can only support what you were saying, Ms. Duncan. What I should add is that the price policy in Ukraine has been totally out of whack. Ukraine last year paid $53 for 1,000 cubic metres of gas. That was produced in Ukraine by a state company, while it imported gas for slightly

Natural Resources committee  I'm happy to do so. If you discuss a business environment in Moldova, it's very complicated. When we discuss energy issues, you can't have very big companies. Big companies in small economies bring about complications. Moldova has, to my knowledge, no energy findings of its own

Natural Resources committee  The short answer is that the current situation is undergoing a massive transition. As you know, yesterday, the IMF decided on a standby program for Ukraine of $17 billion. This is a big reform that is under way. The answer falls into two parts. As it was, until February, it w

Natural Resources committee  Thank you very much. It is a pleasure, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, to testify at this committee today. I work at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, an independent economics think tank. I have been dealing with Soviet Russia and Ukrainian economic