Russian Oil Policy Turning Away From United States - NYT

[hatrack]

MOSCOW - "Almost three years after the Sept. 11 attacks, America is still seeking sources of energy besides the Middle East, and Russia has plenty of oil to sell. But after numerous meetings and high-level talks, the once-promising United States-Russia energy dialogue is sputtering, say government officials and foreign and Russian energy companies. Worse, multinationals like Exxon Mobil are losing ground in developing promising oil and gas projects in Russia. In January, Exxon Mobil lost its license to a significant concession in the Sakhalin Islands in Russia's Far East that it had not yet developed.

What happened? The arrest of Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the billionaire oil tycoon and founder of Yukos, was only the final blow. Before he was jailed, Mr. Khodorkovsky pushed for higher oil exports to the West and even pledged to build a pipeline to China, efforts that the Kremlin came to view as a threat to its power.

But another factor looms: with global oil prices soaring, Russian producers are raking in profits, so the government no longer feels compelled to sell oil to America.

A hoped-for pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Murmansk in far northern Russia, from which Russian oil companies could ship to the United States, will probably not be built. Instead, the Kremlin is negotiating to build a pipeline to Nakhodka, a port on the Sea of Japan, which will bring oil to East Asia; that project has $6 billion in financing promised from the Japanese government. The war in Iraq, meanwhile, has soured relations between the United States and Russia, which sided with France and Germany in opposing the conflict."

EDIT

http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=communique&newsid=5708

[pansypoo53219]

1. Clinton managed to gt russian help

doesn't pootie poot like georgie anymore?

[Krasnaya Lastochka]

2. and why SHOULD Russia feel "compelled"

to sell oil to the United States? It's not Russia's duty to bow at the feet of the Mighty Americans. Nor is it the rest of the world's. America is so arrogant.