RusEnergy

04.10.2006 MosNews - Russia is not seeking to oust foreign oil majors operating big production sharing deals, but will not agree to massive cost overruns at these projects, head of the Kremlin’s economic research department said on Wednesday, Oct. 4. “Production sharing agreements are safe if the conditions of these agreements are observed,” Arkady Dvorkovich was quoted by Prime-Tass as telling reporters. He noted that Russia has no plans to reconsider conditions of production sharing agreements and said that the country expects the same from the foreign participants of these agreements. At the same time the Kremlin expert said that the state was particularly concerned by Royal Dutch Shell’s request to allow it to double costs to $20 billion at its Sakhalin-2 project. “It was obvious from the beginning that the Russian side would never agree with this,” he told a conference.