US Worried Over Snarled Energy Links With Russia - AP

[hatrack]

MOSCOW — "The United States is worried that the much-touted energy cooperation between Moscow and Washington might be faltering, a senior U.S. energy official said Monday.

"We are concerned about some negative trends that might be developing," U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow said at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. "There is an issue with barring foreigners from participation in licensing tenders ... and we've seen on occasion selective application of the law."

He cited the "faltering of major initiatives" such as the development of oil fields off the Far Eastern island of Sakhalin among the concerns. In January, the Russian government said it wouldn't issue a license for the development of the Sakhalin-3 oil project to a consortium led by two U.S. companies, ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco. The group won a tender for the project in 1993, but the license was never issued due to the lack of a legal framework for production-sharing agreements.

The Russian government has since passed laws that make those agreements unfeasible. The ExxonMobil-led consortium, which also includes the Russian state-owned Rosneft, has already spent US$600 million to explore the oil-rich shelf and has said that it will pursue licensing terms under standard Russian legislation. But it warned that the cancellation of the tender sent a negative signal to foreign investors."

EDIT

http://www.enn.com/news/2004-06-08/s_24631.asp

[Wright Patman]

1. Maybe Russia

has watched the U.S. travel down the road to hell known as "globalism" and has decided that a more nationalistic energy policy is in the best interest of its people.

It's no wonder that the PTBs in this country are wanting to take Hamilton off the $10 bill. He was a "protectionist." Of course, those policies led to our expansion as an industrial power for the nearly 150 years they were in place, but they shouldn't have because we all know protectionism leads to economic depressions.

That's also why China is in such a depression right now. They are one of the most protectionist economies on the planet.

[daa]

3. China depression???

Excuse me but China ahs the fastest growing economy on earth. And Russia is pricing oil in Euros and selling it to China.

[sundancekid]

2. do US oil companies all think that the rest of the world is as much

asleep at the brainstem switch as dimson? imagine that, the russians don't want to be fooled twice???