Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS

Moscow, 16 March: Russia is to draw up specific initiatives on energy security by the G8 summit in St Petersburg this July, and will finance them. Russian President Vladimir Putin said today at a meeting with G8 energy ministers.

Putin listed the basic energy issues of today: reliable provision of traditional fuel types; the struggle with energy poverty; security of energy supply; and the development of nuclear energy and promising sources of energy.

"We plan to present specific initiatives and proposals on all these issues by the St Petersburg summit, and we are prepared to take part in full in their practical implementation, including financial participation by our companies and if necessary by the state," Putin said.

First of all Putin thinks it essential to create conditions for the improvement of the investment climate and the development of energy markets, since it is precisely on their efficient work that energy security is based.

"One of the keys to global energy security is an equitable distribution of the risks between the producers, the transporters and the consumers of energy," he said. "The energy market must be insured against unpredictability, and its level of investment risk lowered."

"Appropriate instruments must be developed, in particular long- term contracts between producers and consumers," the president is convinced. He thinks that this takes into account to an appropriate degree the specific features of investment in energy, and creates the preconditions for the prospecting and development of new deposits, technologies and means of delivery of energy.

"Mutually beneficial exchange of assets between energy companies must also play an important role in the distribution of risk," Putin said. "In order to improve the investment climate, it is important to arrive at compatible standards of work for foreign companies on the markets of countries united by energy flows, and provide non- discriminatory access to information on consumers and the consumption of energy, and on plans and forecasts in this area."

"The market itself will determine the appropriate relationship between forms of contract, and the state can only intervene if domination by one of these forms disrupts the efficient work of the market," Putin thinks.

He said the G8 countries had a unique opportunity to "turn a new page in global energy supply".

"Its meaning is the move from discrete projects and from bilateral dialogues to relationships between the world energy partnership, and the St Petersburg G8 summit gives us a good opportunity to begin precisely this work," Putin is convinced.

"It is clear that the topic proposed by Russia of global energy security is not selfish," he emphasized. "The global energy situation is a real challenge for us all, and we can only respond to it in a most effective way by uniting our efforts."

Putin also called on the G8 of developed nations not to forget the problem of reliable and economically accessible provision of energy services to developing countries.

"Energy alone will not address the problem of poverty, but insufficient energy resources place a fundamental restraint on economic growth, and their irrational use can lead to ecological disasters not only of a local but also of a global scale," Putin emphasized.

Taking part in the meeting were the energy ministers of Russia, the UK, Germany, Italy, Canada, the USA, France and Japan, and the federal minister for the economy and labour of Austria, currently chairing the EU, the EC energy commissar, Russian adviser Igor Shuvalov, Russian presidential special representative for international energy cooperation Igor Yusufov, and Foreign Ministry deputy chief Aleksandr Yakovenko.