Gazprom paid $13 billion to buy Sibneft oil company from billionaire Roman Abramovich in 2005, and a year later forced Shell to cede its controlling stake in the Sakhalin II project in Russia's Far East for $7.5 billion.
January 15th, 2009:
Gazprom sways as Russia plays hardball
Sakhalin Energy launches gas production on Far East platform
MOSCOW, January 15 (RIA Novosti) - Sakhalin Energy has launched gas production for the first time from the Lunskoye-A (LUN-A) platform 15 km (9 miles) northeast off Sakhalin, in Russia's Far East, the company said in a statement on Thursday
Corrib New Year impasse
Meanwhile, Mr Monaghan told The Mayo News yesterday there was a serious moral anomaly in a regulator Mayo County Council, in this case wining and dining a developer. At best, the dinner was highly inappropriate in that it was effectively the regulator wining and dining the developer, and even worse still, at the publics expense, said Mr Monaghan. He said due to the controversy around the project, it was highly imprudent of the Council to fraternise in such a way. It leaves the community in no doubt as to the Councils partiality, he added.
Rio boss tipped for BP post in executive shuffle
- The Guardian, Thursday 15 January 2009
Jim Leng, a former senior executive with the steelmaker Corus, is to succeed former Shell executive Paul Skinner as chairman of the mining group Rio Tinto. Skinner is to step down in April at Rio’s annual meeting, but there is now speculation that he will be announced – perhaps as early as next month – as a successor to BP‘s chairman Peter Sutherland, who steps down this summer. BP insiders insist no decision has been taken on who will replace Sutherland, who is a former European competition commissioner, but they admit that Skinner’s energy experience would make him a good choice.
Putin has given us a wake-up call: we’re vulnerable to blackmail
Gazprom under Mr Putin is about control. Gazprom has been moving downstream in Europe, buying up hunks of gas infrastructure and developing joint ventures with European companies all the way from the well to the end consumers. It is moving in on Europe's energy assets unobstructed despite the strict limits - and foul play - that dog foreign investors in Russian oil and gas fields, where Royal Dutch Shell and BP have got badly burnt.
EMBARGO – Quietly, Chávez opens the door to Western oil firms
...faced with the plunge in oil prices and a decline in domestic production, senior officials here have quietly begun soliciting some of the largest Western oil companies in recent weeks, including Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell and Total, in the hope of getting them to invest in Venezuela again.