Faced with the shock of the meeting in Alaska between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, and to the few tangible results on the Ukrainian front that it generated, very little will have noted that on the plane which brought him back to Moscow, the Russian president had signed a presidential decree of significant importance. It authorizes foreign investors to once again take shares in the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project. These are three offshore deposits located on the Russian Pacific coast, east of the island of Sakhalin, in northern Japan. Thus, the American oil giant Exxonmobil could recover the 30 % of the shares he held in the project before 2022 and which had been seized by a first decree signed by Vladimir Putin, after the invasion of Ukraine.
“I noted that Putin brought with him a lot of businessmen, and that’s a good thingsaid Donald Trump on the plane led him to Anchorage. I really like the fact that they want to do business, but it will not happen if the war is not settled ”. War is still not settled. Negotiations are lying around. The principle of a meeting between Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin is acquired, but the modalities are still very vague. In the meantime, the strikes continue and, on the front, the Russians accelerate the cadence, without collapse, however, of the Ukrainians. However, among the Russians as among the Americans, we have been feeling a marked interest for a while in reconnecting in the economic field and that of business. Admittedly, so far, the sanctions are there to block the road to a realization of these projects, but in the event that some of them are lifted, the industrialists of the two countries have been preparing the land for a very long time. Thus, according to the Wall Street Journalunder the Biden Administration already, a certain number of American companies of which Exxon had, as required by the procedure in the event of sanctions against a country, obtained derogations from the Treasury Department allowing them to start talks about their assets blocked in Russia because of the conflict.
Companies forced to leave Russia
In the case of Exxon, the first talks had started just after the spectacular withdrawal of the Russian Society. It must be said that, more than any other company, the American mastodon has woven its canvas through Russia as soon as the USSR falls. Exxonmobil thus held 30 % of the shares on Sakhalin-1, the others being distributed between SakhalinmorneFtegaz-SHELF, a subsidiary of Russian Rosneft, the Indian NGC Videsh and the Japanese Sodeco which, they are never gone … Exxon had exploited the deposits of Sakhalin-1 since 2005, the contract with the Russian government dating back to the 1990s.
Relations with Russian power were excellent, to the point that in 2013, the previous CEO of the group, Rex Tillerson, was decorated by Vladimir Putin of the Medal of the Order of Friendship. After the invasion of Ukraine, the shortfall of the departure was terrible for Exxon. Sakahlin-1 represented 3 % of all of the crude gross extracted by the company. She had also developed with Rosneft imports of natural gas imports via tankers, still from Sakhalin-1. After February 2022, the company tried to sell its participation, with a depreciation of $ 4.6 billion. But Moscow blocked the sale and liquidates participation. Exxon qualified the expropriation approach. She was not the only one, far from it, of these Western companies forced to leave Russia, leaving considerable investments behind. In December 2024, Vladimir Putin signed a decree extending until 2026 the period of sale of the non-claimed participation of Exxon in Sakhalin-1.
The CEOs of Exxon and Rosneft have met several times
Since Donald Trump’s return to business, relations between the United States and Russia have made a complete voltage. During the first meetings between American and Russian delegations in Riyadh, the economic aspect was immediately put on the table, with a marked enthusiasm of the two parties. During one of the telephone conversations between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, he was even mentioned the construction of a Trump Tower in Moscow, that is to say … The CEO of Exxon, Neil Chapman, and that of Rosneft, Igor Setchine, met several times in Doha in Qatar. Igor Setchine appears on the list of Russian oligarchs with whom it is prohibited to deal with, but Exxon benefits from his derogation granted by the US Treasury. Since then, Russians have been looking to accelerate the movement, first to develop their production of oil and gas. If it has been maintained in three and a half years of conflict, Russia managing to sell its crude despite European and American sanctions, the absence of foreign investments begins to be felt, in particular with regard to maintenance and refurbishment of the equipment. New, the impact of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries and pipelines cause supply problems in the country.
On the Russian side, nothing has yet been acted
The fact remains that despite the decree signed by Vladimir Putin, important obstacles set up by the Russian government remain for the return of foreign companies. On the American side, if the lifting of the sanctions is discussed, nothing has yet been acted as long as the Russians continue their advances on the Ukrainian field. Recall that Donald Trump still sanctioned India with exorbitant customs tariffs due to the fact that it sells Russian oil. Nevertheless, if in the nearby Exxon future resumes foot in Russia, irony will want Americans to resell Russian oil Europeans as part of the $ 750 billion in American energy purchases, so skillfully negotiated by Ursula von der Leyen, with additional taxation as is already the case for arms to Ukraine …
