BreadBros
12th December 2006, 00:53
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,1970064,00.html
Shell is being forced by the Russian government to hand over its controlling stake in the world's biggest liquefied gas project, provoking fresh fears about the Kremlin's willingness to use the country's growing strength in natural resources as a political weapon.
After months of relentless pressure from Moscow, the Anglo-Dutch company has to cut its stake in the $20bn Sakhalin-2 scheme in the far east of Russia in favour of the state-owned energy group Gazprom.
[...]
Dmitry Peskov, the official spokesman of Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, hit out yesterday at critics in the western media who implicated the Russian government in manipulating oil projects and the poisoning of dissidents. He said there was too much "anti-Russian hysteria".With reference to BP's oil spills in Alaska, he added: "If it's an environmental problem in Alaska it's environmental. If it's in Russia you call it politics."
But other senior politicians in Moscow had no doubt Shell was being harassed into reducing its 55% stake in Sakhalin-2 to something close to 25% through relentless pressure from ministries.
"In the current situation Shell will not be able to defend its economic interests in a civilised process with the Russian authorities, so they will be obliged to give up control if they want to save at least some adequate part of the project," said Vladimir Milov, Russia's former deputy energy minister.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5-2499998,00.html
Foreign energy companies will be welcome in future as subcontractors but not as owners in Russia’s energy industry, the Kremlin signalled yesterday as Gazprom moved closer towards wresting control of Sakhalin-2, the giant Siberian gas project, from Royal Dutch Shell.
[...]
“We understand that it is better to have a direct share but you have to understand these are Russian resources. No country in the world would want to give up its natural resources to foreigners.”
Existing agreements would be respected, he said, but he suggested that the contracts granting major concessions to companies, such as Shell, were a legacy of a past era. “In the 1990s, our country was in a poor economic state, we couldn’t develop energy by ourselves. We had to attract investors with extremely favourable conditions. Now the situation has changed drastically,” Mr Peskov said.
Shell is being forced by the Russian government to hand over its controlling stake in the world's biggest liquefied gas project, provoking fresh fears about the Kremlin's willingness to use the country's growing strength in natural resources as a political weapon.
After months of relentless pressure from Moscow, the Anglo-Dutch company has to cut its stake in the $20bn Sakhalin-2 scheme in the far east of Russia in favour of the state-owned energy group Gazprom.
[...]
Dmitry Peskov, the official spokesman of Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, hit out yesterday at critics in the western media who implicated the Russian government in manipulating oil projects and the poisoning of dissidents. He said there was too much "anti-Russian hysteria".With reference to BP's oil spills in Alaska, he added: "If it's an environmental problem in Alaska it's environmental. If it's in Russia you call it politics."
But other senior politicians in Moscow had no doubt Shell was being harassed into reducing its 55% stake in Sakhalin-2 to something close to 25% through relentless pressure from ministries.
"In the current situation Shell will not be able to defend its economic interests in a civilised process with the Russian authorities, so they will be obliged to give up control if they want to save at least some adequate part of the project," said Vladimir Milov, Russia's former deputy energy minister.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5-2499998,00.html
Foreign energy companies will be welcome in future as subcontractors but not as owners in Russia’s energy industry, the Kremlin signalled yesterday as Gazprom moved closer towards wresting control of Sakhalin-2, the giant Siberian gas project, from Royal Dutch Shell.
[...]
“We understand that it is better to have a direct share but you have to understand these are Russian resources. No country in the world would want to give up its natural resources to foreigners.”
Existing agreements would be respected, he said, but he suggested that the contracts granting major concessions to companies, such as Shell, were a legacy of a past era. “In the 1990s, our country was in a poor economic state, we couldn’t develop energy by ourselves. We had to attract investors with extremely favourable conditions. Now the situation has changed drastically,” Mr Peskov said.