Mr. Koji Toyoshima, the head of the Moscow representative office of the Japanese National Oil, Gas and Metals Corporation JOGMEC visited St. Petersburg Mining University. During the meeting with the rector Vladimir Litvinenko he discussed the prospects of the partnership between the parties in such areas as scientific support of the company’s projects in our country, as well as research in the field of transportation and storage of hydrogen.
- The National Oil, Gas and Metals Corporation (JOGMEC) is the government agency responsible for the stability of the supply of hydrocarbons, strategic metals, and other minerals to the Land of the Rising Sun, as well as for minimizing environmental pollution. Due to the acute shortage of its own natural resources, it is a fundamental structure for the sustainability of Japan’s socio-economic development.
Koji Toyoshima pointed out that JOGMEC has been represented in the Russian market for quite a long time. For example, for more than 10 years it has been cooperating with the Irkutsk Oil Company that develops fields in Eastern Siberia. According to the guest from Japan, this business will be in demand for many years to come. Despite the boom in the construction of wind turbines and solar panels all over the world, they cannot replace fossil fuels as the basis of the global energy balance at this stage of technology development.
Vladimir Litvinenko told about the plans to build an energy technology testing facility at the site of the Mining University's science and educational base in Sablino. It is needed for testing the equipment designed for drilling oil and gas wells, as well as conducting research related to hydrogen production, transportation, and storage.
Mr. Toyoshima showed great interest in this idea and emphasized that scientific research related to the lightest gas in nature is a highly sought-after area today. The parties discussed the prospects of Japanese participation as one of the investors in the creation of the testing ground. In addition, the head of the Moscow office of JOGMEC announced plans to engage scientists of Mining University in a number of Russian corporate projects for their scientific support.
He also told Vladimir Litvinenko that he was aware of the upcoming Russian-German mineral resources forum initiated by St. Petersburg Mining University. Koji Toyoshima called such conferences “the foundation for the formation of the energy structure in the future.” And he expressed the hope that in the foreseeable future our states will have a similar platform, where they could discuss bilateral cooperation in the field of energy.
