Total CEO: Europe needs pipe gas from Russia

Europe will need gas pipeline supplies from Russia due to the growing demand on the European market, Total CEO Patrick Pouyanne said at a session of the World Gas Conference in Washington.

"In fact, we need LNG from the US, and we need new regasification terminals, but we also need pipe gas from the other side because of the lack of [gas]," TASS cited him as saying.

Total CEO said the extraction of natural gas has been on decline in Europe, including in the United Kingdom, Norway and The Netherlands. Pouyanne added that in the past 15 years, gas output dropped by one billion cubic meters annually compared to present-day figures.

After the US had become a net exporter of natural gas for the first time in 60 years due to the development of LNG sector, Washington started to threaten Russia with sanctions against its Nord Stream-2 Europe-bound gas pipeline project. European and Russian officials said on many occasions that the US policy of sanctions is intended to drive Russia out of the European energy market and fill the void with its LNG supplies.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would welcome European participation in the Nord Stream-2 project. He named France’s Total among potential partners.