RusEnergy

23 November 2006 Upstream onLine
BP chief John Browne said today that international oil companies should not expect to control Russia's natural resources.
"We have learnt about the importance of oil and gas for national security," Browne told the EU-Russia Industrialists' Round Table in Helsinki. Russian assets "will remain predominantly Russian assets" he added. While international investment can be "welcomed" to develop the resources, the issue of security means they will remain mainly Russian, which may not be understood internationally, Browne said. "Some people still seem to think that national assets in Russia will be sold off," Browne said. "That represents a profound misunderstanding of the Russian view of its precious resource base." The country's energy industries will generate one-third of national income this year and hundreds of thousand of jobs, he said. "We are delighted to have made these investments and to have been welcomed as international partners," Bloomberg quoted him as saying. Browne also praised Russia's role in "stabilising" world energy markets over the last four years when the war in the Middle East and civil conflict in Nigeria pushed prices up. "Without Russia, the world market would have been much more volatile, potentially causing great damage to the international economy," he said. "That important pre-eminent role looks set to continue" because of its oil and gas reserves and scarcity of cheaply producible resources elsewhere. Yesterday Browne met with Gazprom boss Alexei Miller and Sergei Bogdanchikov of Rosneft in Moscow. Browne and Miller discussed cooperating on projects and sales of liquefied natural gas, Gazprom said. BP and Rosneft will spend $700 million over the next five years to develop fields under the Sakhalin 4 and Sakhalin 5 projects through a venture they set up in 2003, Rosneft said after a meeting between Browne and Bogdanchikov. "Understanding of the context in which you are working is always vital to business success," Browne said. "That is particularly true in a country such as Russia."