Russian Energy Minister Igor Yusufov states the government wants up to $1 billion for...
Russian Energy Minister Igor Yusufov stated that the government wants up to $1 billion for a license to explore and develop one of the three Sakhalin-3 blocs that a consortium led by ExxonMobil won in a tender a decade ago.
The announcement came a week after the government decided to annul the 1993 exploration tender originally awarded to the company. U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow called this annulment worrisome and potentially harmful to U.S.-Russia ties.
Yusufov said the state wants to auction off Sakhalin-3's Kirinsky block, the largest of the project's three blocks with estimated reserves of 453 million tons of extractable oil and 700 billion cubic meters of gas.
He said the bloc should fetch $800 million to $1 billion.
ExxonMobil had no immediate comment about Yusufov's remarks. But earlier Wednesday, ExxonMobil Russia vice president Glenn Waller reiterated that his company would treat any attempt by the government to auction Sakhalin-3 as a threat. "It, of course, concerns us because we have business interests in this. But it's an issue of due process, the issue of investors' rights," Waller said.
