The administration of US President Joseph Biden has held talks with a number of international energy companies regarding their actions in the event of problems with gas supplies to Europe, if Russia’s escalation towards Ukraine leads to a disruption in the transit of raw materials from Russia. This was reported on Friday, January 14, by Reuters, citing two American officials and two unnamed interlocutors from the industry.
Representatives of the State Department, in particular, tried to find out from energy companies what additional sources of obtaining “blue fuel” could be, two interlocutors noted. According to experts from the industry, it will be difficult to cover the shortage in case of possible problems from Russia. Amos Hochstein, Senior Adviser to the US Secretary of State for Energy Security, participated in the discussions on behalf of the US Foreign Department. At the same time, the State Department did not ask firms to increase production at this stage, Reuters noted.
Representatives of the European Commission participated in the consultations
“We discussed a number of contingencies and told what we are doing with our state partners and allies,” the source explained. According to him, the European Commission was also involved in the dialogue. The discussion was built around the possibility of increasing exports and increasing fuel production.
It is not specified which representatives of the industry were contacted by American officials. Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips and Exxon declined to comment. Chevron Corp, Total, Equinor and Qatar Energy did not respond to a request at time of publication.
The National Security Council does not comment on the course of the discussion.
A spokesman for the National Security Council (NSC) at the White House did not comment on the discussions, but confirmed that contingency planning is currently underway.
“Assessing potential impacts and exploring ways to mitigate them is part of good governance and standard practice,” the NSS said.
Crisis over Ukraine and Russia’s demands
On January 12, Brussels hosted the first meeting of the NATO-Russia Council since 2019. The negotiations were attended by representatives of 30 countries of the North Atlantic Alliance and Secretary General of the organization Jens Stoltenberg. The parties failed to make any appreciable progress. The US and its NATO allies have said that NATO’s doors will continue to be open to new members, and Russia cannot have a veto on this issue.
In 2021, Russia deployed about 100 thousand military personnel to the annexed Crimea and to the border with Ukraine, explaining this with exercises. Kiev and Western leaders fear that Moscow is preparing for a new invasion of Ukraine.
Russia denies such intentions and accuses Western countries of arming Ukraine and carrying out maneuvers near the borders of the Russian Federation. Moscow demands “security guarantees”, including NATO’s refusal to expand eastward and admit Ukraine into its structure, to conduct military activities in the countries of Eastern Europe, Transcaucasia and Central Asia, and also to refuse to deploy medium and short-range missiles on positions from which they can hit the territory of other parties to the agreement.
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