{"id":388,"date":"2008-11-01T08:57:49","date_gmt":"2008-11-01T04:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=388"},"modified":"2008-11-01T09:43:14","modified_gmt":"2008-11-01T05:43:14","slug":"have-the-supermajors-russian-prospects-improved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/388\/","title":{"rendered":"Have the Supermajors’ Russian Prospects Improved?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following on from the previous post, it goes without saying that Russia is going to find it much harder to obtain financial backing for its oil and gas development projects now that the western financial institutions upon which they\u00a0previously relied are themselves in such trouble.\u00a0 The money promised by the government to major oil companies facing debt refinancing problems has started to flow<\/a>, whilst Gazprom remains confident<\/a> that its development plans will go ahead unchanged despite the global financial crisis.<\/p>\n

So where might the cash needed to continue Russia’s oil and gas development come from?\u00a0 Looking to the Middle East might provide us with an answer, something I mentioned once before in this post<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Most of the national oil companies in the Middle East have enormous reserves and massive production figures, but are loaded down with enormous debt from the days when oil was $10 per barrel, not to mention that these companies have elevated expenses due to them generally being inefficient, overstaffed, and used as a piggy-bank by the sitting government. It is not uncommon for the giant national oil companies of the Gulf States to partner up with a cash-rich western supermajor in order to provide the investment needed to develop a new project or upgrade a field.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Having spent the past few years reasserting their authority over the foreign oil companies operating inside Russia, might the Russian government now be tempted to turn to the cash-rich supermajors to stump up the funds necessary to continue with their development plans?\u00a0 Such a move might raise questions amongst a population who has been continually told that foreign oil companies are neither welcome nor needed in Russia, and western oil companies – still bruised from wrestling with the Kremlin\u00a0over control of\u00a0existing projects – would need more than promises and verbal guarantees to once again pour billions into Russia’s oilfield developments.<\/p>\n

But the fact remains that somebody needs to fund Russia’s development plans, and western oil companies are not only well suited to do this, but also – despite all – eager to gain greater access to Russia’s gigantic reserves.\u00a0 Might we see the Kremlin once again warm to BP, Shell, and Exxon as the financial crisis takes hold?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following on from the previous post, it goes without saying that Russia is going to find it much harder to obtain financial backing for its oil and gas development projects now that the western financial institutions upon which they\u00a0previously relied … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}