MOSCOW--Russia President Vladimir Putin said Monday the Kremlin
may let China have a share in one of the largest Siberian energy
projects, the Vankor oil and gas field.
"Vankor is one of the biggest production operations today and
very promising. Overall, we take a cautious approach to letting in
our foreign partners, but we of course set no restrictions for our
Chinese friends," Mr. Putin told China Vice Premier Minister Zhang
Gaoli.
According to the transcript of the meeting, published on the
Kremlin website, the idea of inviting the Chinese came from the
chief executive of Russia's largest state-controlled oil company
Rosneft.
"The state authorities support this idea and we would welcome
your participation," said Mr. Putin.
For more than a decade now the Kremlin has been increasing the
state's hold of Russia's vast oil and gas resources, driving both
local and Western energy companies out of developing the large
hydrocarbons fields.
However the Russian oil and gas industry needs money and
expertise, and state-controlled company Rosneft, which owned the
Vankor field, is keen on accepting foreign companies, including
ExxonMobil, BP and Indian state-run ONGC, as junior partners in new
projects.
As the West is pondering a new set of economic sanctions against
Moscow for stirring up the armed conflict in Ukraine, the Kremlin
is keen to show that it has more options eastwards. Russia's gas
monopoly Gazprom in May signed a $400 billion deal with China
National Petroleum Corp. which envisages a supply of an average of
38 billion cubic meters of gas annually for a period of 30 years to
China.
The construction of the pipeline was opened Monday in the
presence of Mr. Putin and Mr. Zhang.
The mammoth Vankor field was discovered in eastern Siberia in
1988, just before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The field has
oil reserves of 3.8 billion barrels of oil and 95 billion cubic
meters of gas.
After almost two decades of different Russian and international
companies" attempts to get hold of the giant field, or at least
part of it, Russia's state-controlled Rosneft started production in
2009.
Write to Alexander Kolyandr at alexander.kolyandr@wsj.com
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