Alwaght- Chief executive of Russian oil giant Rosneft slammed on Thursday the US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, saying Washington is exploiting energy as a political weapon. Igor Sechin said that the US golden age of energy had become an “era of energy colonialism” for other countries.
Speaking at an economic forum in St Petersburg, Igor Sechin said a third of global oil reserves were currently restricted by US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela and that Washington was losing moral ground as a self-styled leader of open markets, Reuters reported.
“A number of commentators like to accuse Russia of using energy as a political tool,” Sechin said.
“But indisputably the reality today is that the United States uses energy as a political weapon on a mass scale. Sanctions, or even the threat of their imposition, has a destructive effect on the global energy market ecosystem,” he said.
In response to comments by US officials last week who said that Washington was exporting “molecules of freedom,” Sechin said that Russian and US energy molecules were identical but that Russian energy was 30% cheaper.
