Russia Wants Foreign Firms to Tap Offshore Oil and Gas
Russia's Natural Resources Deputy Minister Sergei Donskoi told Reuters that Russia is looking to get foreign companies involved to help develop its offshore oil and gas reserves, as the country's domestic companies now lack the resources to do so alone.
Donskoi said: "There is a question, can (Russian) companies fulfil the large-scale task of offshore development on their own? It should be admitted that these companies don't have enough strength and money to work out these tasks."
Reuters notes that Russia enacted legislation to limit foreign participation in developing its natural resources, finding that the authorities "gave exclusive rights to the world's largest gas company Gazprom and Russia's biggest oil company Rosneft [both state-owned] to tap offshore reserves which account for about quarter of the world's hydrocarbon resources. Foreign companies were also forced out of ongoing projects."