Over many past decades, our countries have built a special relationship. We have maintained diplomatic ties for more than eighty years, first established during a very difficult period for Russia and the Soviet Union, in 1944.

We are pleased to host in Moscow the heads of leading world companies, specialists, and experts from the industry for a substantive dialogue on developing the energy sector. This dialogue is of particular importance amid dynamic and profound shifts in the global market.

As you are aware, under political pressure, many European countries have rejected Russian energy resources. <...> We are witnessing the fallout of such actions. In the EU itself, we see diminishing industrial outputs, rising prices owing to more expensive oil and gas coming from beyond the ocean, as well as lower competitiveness of the European goods and the European economy as a whole.

It is about one percent lower than last year, but I would like to draw attention to the fact that we are doing that in conformity with the OPEC Plus agreements, which means that it is a voluntary cut.

The move by the EU has only accelerated the shift of our supplies in favour of more promising and reliable clients: countries that know their interests and act rationally based on those interests.

We are increasing our internal consumption of gas, which is of the utmost importance, in particular in gas chemical facilities being currently built in the Volga Region, in Siberia, and in the Russian Far East. We are also providing better supplies of gas to our settlements and cities: over the past five years alone, we have built more than 100,000 kilometres of gas distribution networks, thereby propelling our level of gasification to almost 75 percent, and this level will only grow.

But there are clear regional distinctions we can observe. Whilst Western markets are decreasing their coal demand, Asian countries are, on the contrary, increasing the consumption of coal. Of course, it all boils down to economic efficiency of coal-based electricity generation, but given the global economic activity centre of gravity is shifting towards the Asia-Pacific, we can expect the coal market to remain significant for decades to come.

According to some estimates, in the next 25 years, electricity generation will double, and 85 percent of additional demand is going to come from outside the so-called developed economies, from the countries of the Global South.

By that I mean natural gas and nuclear generation, renewables, and hydropower. Our companies are implementing green long-term generation projects not just in Russia, but abroad as well. For example, Russian scientists, engineers, and managers took part in implementing over 400 hydropower projects in 55 countries of the world.

Rosatom accounts for about ninety percent of the global NPP construction market. Almost ninety percent! One hundred and ten energy units of Russian design have been built around the world.

Russia is the only country in the world that has the competences across the entire nuclear energy supply chain. And by building facilities abroad, we are not just erecting facilities: together with our partners, we are creating the future of the energy sector and related sectors of the country, and shaping a solid foundation in terms of talent pools, research, and technology for entire countries to achieve growth.

Western technologies and equipment for the fuel and energy sector could become unavailable at any moment for geopolitical reasons — unavailable not only for Russia, but for any other energy supplier that someone in the West considers inconvenient competition, or simply an uncooperative country. And everyone should keep it in mind, such is the reality of today. But I am sure that everyone understands it quite well.

That means that we have to actively shift the status of energy suppliers from requiring to purchase equipment to possessing technological leadership by shaping fully-fledged energy sovereignty at the national level, starting from the production and processing of resources and all the way to the transportation of produced goods.