[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 41, Number 8 (Monday, February 28, 2005)]
[Pages 321-322]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Joint Statement by President George W. Bush and President Vladimir V. 
Putin: U.S.-Russian Energy Cooperation

February 24, 2005

    Cooperation on energy issues remains an area of great promise for 
U.S.-Russian relations. We will work further to realize the vision for 
our energy cooperation in all aspects described in our statement in May 
2002, including through the mechanisms of the Commercial Energy Dialogue 
and the Energy Working Group. Accordingly, we have instructed our 
ministers to continue their energy dialogue, concentrating on ways to 
enhance energy security, diversify energy supplies, improve the 
transparency of the business and investment environment, reduce 
obstacles to increased commercial energy partnerships, and develop 
resources in an environmentally safe manner.
    We call upon our Ministers of Energy and Commerce to develop 
recommendations, which we can support at one of our upcoming meetings, 
on how to further intensify and develop our energy dialogue. Those 
recommendations will focus on identifying barriers to energy trade and 
investment, promoting initiatives to remove them on the basis of 
predictability, fairness and law, and

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suggesting specific proposals for cooperating in developing energy trade 
and investment.
    We will promote the creation of transparent tax, legal, regulatory, 
and contractual conditions for our companies' cooperation, and support 
Russia's pipeline system development, which will create the 
preconditions for increasing deliveries of oil and gas export, including 
to the U.S. market.
    We are interested in increasing U.S. commercial investment in 
Russia, so as to create additional capacity for liquefied natural gas 
(LNG) in Russia, and also with the aim of increasing LNG exports to U.S. 
markets. We would welcome increased Russian oil exports to the world 
market and an increased presence of imports from Russia in the United 
States. We would also welcome expanding mutual investments in the energy 
sectors of both countries.
    The initiation of several concrete projects should be targeted for 
no later than 2008.

 Note: An original was not available for verification of the content of 
this joint statement.