Russian President Vladimir Putin commented on the situation with abnormal frosts in the United States and rebuked them for the “frozen” Texas, where the energy crisis began. He believes that the situation should be taken into account when developing scenarios for the development of the global fuel and energy complex, Interfax reports.
“Now Texas is frozen, and the windmills had to be heated in ways that are far from environmental protection,” Putin said. According to him, it is necessary to work out all possible scenarios in order to “guarantee the steady development of our coal-mining regions even with a decrease in global demand for coal.”
Speaking about the coal industry, the President urged to channel revenues from coal exports to the development of Russian coal-mining regions, as well as make plans for the long term.
Earlier, the United States calculated multibillion-dollar damage from the devastating frost that hit Texas in early 2021. According to Chuck Watson of Enki Research, the disaster analysis center, the losses could be estimated at $ 80-90 billion.
At the end of February, Texas energy companies were on the brink of massive defaults. Due to abnormal cold weather and snowfall, their work was disrupted, so they had to urgently purchase energy from other suppliers against the background of a sharp rise in prices. In addition, frosts, atypical for the southern states of the United States, down to minus 18 degrees Celsius, put part of the country on the brink of a gasoline shortage.