Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in an effort to alleviate Western concerns over Russian energy deals said that talk of revising PSA's or seeking to exclude foreigners from the sector were unfounded.
Lavrov said, "Assertions about 'revisions' of PSAs and especially about squeezing foreigners out of the Russian energy sector have absolutely no basis whatsoever".
He also added that "Carrying out checks in no way means that licenses for developing deposits within the Sakhalin-2 project will be withdrawn".
Recent threats from Russian officials to withdraw an ecological permit for the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project led by Shell have led to fears that Russia wants to renegotiate the production sharing agreement.
Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev said on Tuesday that work on the Sakhalin-2 project could continue while a full-scale ecological probe, due to start on October 25 is held.
Shell has doubled the estimated cost of the Sakhalin-2 project to $20 billion which has infuriated Russia, complicating talks on the strategic swap of assets with state controlled Gazprom.
Concerns about the suspension of oil pipeline loading for technical checks on the ExxonMobil run Sakhalin-1 PSA project abounded while ExxonMobil's arm in Russia said it was unaware of any order to suspend work and business was continuing as usual.
The head of Russia's technical standards agency said that he hoped Sakhalin-1 would be able to deal with any breaches of the rules at its De Kastri terminal before its planned launch on October 1.
ExxonMobil said that while the issue needed to be sorted out, the scheduled launch of the terminal was possible.
Picture Courtesy: www.flickr.com
Leave a comment