I thank my lucky stars that I was born, grew up and got on my feet at the very time when Western Siberian petroleum industry was being developed in full swing. When studying at the institute, I understood distinctly that I wouldn't be able to live without the North and big business. I have the only guideline in business and life – a result. 

Unified power and petroleum & gas supply systems are unique technological complexes in the world, which ensure reliable power supply and economic integration of the country's regions and serve as an example in many respects for the whole world. Having created such systems, we left behind a lot of developed countries, which has become particularly obvious nowadays, under globalization.

The main objective of energy and economic policy of the state is to use natural resources, human and technological potential most efficiently in order to improve living standards for Russian citizens. Living standards mean not only sufficient heat and light and growth of material welfare, but also nature to be preserved and social and cultural aspects of life to be developed.

We cannot say that we will reach developed European countries in terms of GDP value and living standards by 2020 or some other date. But we can and must choose a direction for Russia’s sustainable development, our own way, based upon our longings and potential, to follow by using the whole set of market and state methods of management (control), by keeping abreast of and forecasting a situation and making quick decisions pursuant to the Strategy approved. There can be the only priority here and that is the national interest of Russia.

Under free international markets, the state should use protective measures and diplomatic means to assist domestic companies and get them involved in foreign oil and gas field development, thereby exploiting not only its own resources but also resources of those countries that are closer to the main centers of the world’s energy consumption.

A policy of creating vertically integrated oil companies was chosen absolutely correctly. This structure has a good deal of organizational, financial and technological advantages over the oil industry of the Former SU and, as world experience has shown, it most closely meets market requirements.         

Over ten years there has been all-round redistribution of property, consuming a lot of funds and efforts. This process has been accompanied by emergence of banks and industrial and other associations and involvement of politicians and deputies into these activities, which I consider as the most negative outcome of the reforms. The main way for Russia’s fuel and energy complex to be developed is not to redistribute the existing property but to generate the new one through carrying out projects by drawing direct investments, including foreign ones.
I was not an advocate for drastic paces of privatization. It takes heaps of years for countries with a hundred-year experience of market relations to prepare and fulfill privatization but in this country we disposed of the state property for months. If you took a decision to sell property, there should be a year-on-year schedule as well as revenues of the state and articles that these revenues are to be spent on should be determined.

Mergers and consolidation of Russian oil companies is an objective process. Consolidation is merely a matter of time. One cannot bypass economic laws since only the strongest survives a crisis.
We should eliminate any speculation about the resources-oriented economy and stop intimidating ourselves in this context. The most important task for us is to ensure expansion of Russian companies throughout the European markets. We urgently need to acquire property in the European oil market and sell "liters, cubic meters and kilograms" there, i.e. oil and gas products and petrochemicals rather than crude oil and gas. We should raise production and sales of crude oil and gas. What we call high technologies should first of all satisfy home needs of these branches.

I am strictly confident that a production-sharing law should be exclusively applied to new large start-up projects. PSA instrument cannot be used for every project without exception. That's an extreme. As an organizer and initiator of the Law on PSA adopted I strongly object to applying PSA on a mass scale. This law is solely designed for start-up projects that require legislation to be stable and large investment to be involved in a short period of time.

There should be plenty of small companies. They mean investments, new jobs, pipes and equipment orders that can be small but they are signed. A small private company will definitely find a loan for a specific project on a specific oil field and will manage to pay it off if, of course, the tax policy of the government makes it possible. What is particularly important is that this sector of oil producing industry is conducting its operations on completely new areas. And this implies not a redistribution of the state property but generation of the new one. It should be welcomed and promoted.

Of course, a private owner operates more efficiently. I will continue to adhere to this stance. However, a strategy intended to change the form of property in oil industry towards domination of private companies is not in conflict with the existence of National Oil Company. In countries that have never had any idea of socialism and that have been cherishing market economy for centuries there are companies, firms and banks, in which the government holds a controlling interest or, sometimes, 100% of shares. It does not hinder such companies from operating successfully under market conditions and the government from exerting influence on strategically important industries.

Russia has a unique chance today to strengthen its position and become a world decision-maker by building up the right policy for the coming decades. First, through increasing oil production; second, through intensifying goal-directed operations on oil and oil product markets in the CIS countries (Ukraine, Byelorussia, the Baltic countries, Moldova and the Transcaucasian) and, particularly, in Europe; third, through getting Russia involved in developing production assets in Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan; and fourth, through constructing pipeline systems to the South.

Branches of fuel and energy complex have the personnel, intellectual, production and resource potential required to make Russia a leading country. We should build up the power of the state with the help of Fuel and Energy Complex rather than at the expense of it. In practice there is a big difference between these two ways.