(Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Russian gas output rose by 8% in the first four months of the year to 246.4 bcm.
Putin, addressing a televised meeting of senior officials devoted to energy issues, also said Russian oil output had declined by 1.8 % in the year to date to 195.7 million tons, a dip largely due to production cuts under OPEC+ agreements.
Attending the meeting was Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, Russia's point man on OPEC+ output quotas, Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev, the deputy head of the presidential administration, Maxim Oreshkin and the head of gas giant Gazprom, Alexei Miller.
Miller was absent from Putin's delegation during the president's talks last week in Beijing, where no additional oil and gas deals were publicly announced.
"Despite sanctions and considerable volatility on global and regional energy markets, the domestic fuel and energy complex is developing in a stable fashion and new export areas are opening up," Putin told the meeting.
"And what is critically important and a priority for us is that it is reliably and fully meeting domestic needs. Russia's economy is growing, needs are rising and they are being met by the fuel and energy complex."
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
