By Garfield Reynolds and Lucian Kim
Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) — OAO Rosneft, Russia’s state oil company, will win a license to explore for oil and gas at an offshore area bordering Exxon Mobil Corp.’s Sakhalin-1 project in the Pacific Ocean.
Rosneft was the only company to apply by the Sept. 14 deadline to take part in a planned auction of the license for the Lebedinsky field, said Nikolai Gudkov, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Ministry, today by phone. That means the auction will be canceled and the license awarded to Rosneft, he said.
Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil owns 30 percent of Sakhalin- 1 and operates the field. Rosneft owns 20 percent, as does India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corp. A group of Japanese companies owns the rest. Russian daily Kommersant said today that Rosneft may try to wrap the Lebedinsky field into Sakhalin-1 to gain a 25 percent blocking stake in the project.
“First we’d have to find oil before even thinking about increasing our share,” said Nikolai Manvelov, a Rosneft spokesman. Manvelov said he could confirm only that Rosneft had applied for the permit.
Exxon Mobil says the Lebedinsky field should be considered a continuation of the Sakhalin-1 development. The Russian government disagrees. Earlier this month, Deputy Natural Resources Minister Alexei Varlamov told Ben Haynes, president of Exxon Mobil’s Russian unit, that the borders of Sakhalin-1 could not be expanded to include new finds.
The U.S. oil company began pumping oil from Sakhalin-1’s subsea wells in October and plans to start exporting crude this month form the De Kastri terminal on Russia’s Pacific coast. The Natural Resources Ministry this week said the port didn’t fully comply with safety standards.
Russia wants Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Total SA to cede some of the control they gained over three oil fields through production-sharing agreements that were granted in the 1990s. The foreign-led ventures have become anomalies in Russia as President Vladimir Putin increases state control over the energy industry.
To contact the reporters on this story: Lucian Kim in Moscow at [email protected] ; Garfield Reynolds in Moscow at [email protected]
Last Updated: September 22, 2006 05:21 EDT
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
