Word: oil
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...companies yearning to cash in on Russia's immensely lucrative energy boom, there's an obvious business lesson: choose your partners carefully. The moment a lock-in agreement blocking either side from selling out expired in December, the competing interests of BP and AAR looked set for a collision. Oil giants like BP are used to investing for the long term, knowing that patience is key in this capital-intensive business. AAR would like a faster return. Both sides might have done better, in fact, if one had taken overall control. Indeed, Putin recently recalled warning...
This deal, which created Russia's third-largest oil firm, still has the leaders of both countries talking. But their tone has changed. When current U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown brought up TNK-BP with Dmitri Medvedev, Putin's successor, on the sidelines of the G-8 summit on July 7, the uneasy discussion was of a breakdown in relations between the British and Russian partners. Meanwhile, Dudley, the company's BP-appointed boss, is battling to keep his job. In Moscow that same day, AAR, the Russian consortium that controls 50% of TNK-BP, called for his dismissal, claiming...
Nonetheless, sweeping changes inside Russia's oil and gas sectors in recent years have dented Western investors' faith in the country's rule of law. Caught up in a state effort to claw back control of lucrative assets, some were left badly scarred. In 2006 BP rival Royal Dutch Shell was forced to give up control of the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project off Russia's eastern coast after the country's environmental regulators threatened to shut it down. Gazprom, Russia's state-owned energy company, duly took over the operation...
...hard to see why the Brits might welcome Gazprom. Likewise, Gazprom may be more attuned to the benefits of having a foreign partner with deep pockets and a long-term outlook. To help develop a vast gas field in the Barents Sea, Gazprom teamed up with Norwegian oil firm StatoilHydro and French giant Total last year, indicating there's still an openness to such partnerships, even as Russia gains confidence in its ability to fly solo. Moreover, Moscow is under pressure to reverse a worrisome slowdown in the nation's oil production. While the rules of the game keep changing...
...Iraq and the Persian Gulf have been quiet recently, as both sides have been careful to avoid a sustained clash that could escalate into outright conflict. And Iran showed no new military capabilities with the tests. At the same time, diplomacy is deadlocked as Iran takes advantage of soaring oil prices to trump U.N sanctions, while the U.S. sticks to its insistence that Iran suspend its uranium enrichment program before Washington will hold negotiations. European efforts to end the impasse have so far served largely as a convenient stalling mechanism for the Iranians...