MOSCOW. March 14 (Interfax) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Saturday ordered larger supplies of liquefied natural gas from Russia's Sakhalin-2 oil and gas field to Japan if the latter asks for this.
Japan "is our neighbor, a friendly neighbor, and, despite various problems, we must be reliable partners and do our best to help [Japan] with energy supplies due to the decreasing capacity as a result of the earthquake and tsunami," Putin said in issuing his order at a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, head of state nuclear corporation Rosatom Sergei Kiriyenko and First Deputy Emergency Situations Minister Ruslan Tsalikov.
Putin also urged the government to "monitor the situation throughout the Russian Far Eastern region extremely carefully and once again check whether all the forces and resources are ready that are prescribed by our plans for such eventualities."
The situation needs round-the-clock monitoring, he said.