India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) doubts that Russia will try to take over the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project, in which it has a stake.
A senior Russian legislator said on Thursday that Moscow would take control of the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project in which ExxonMobil and Japan’s SODECO are also partners.
Last week, Russia took over the neighbouring Sakhalin-2 as its Japanese partners exited due to sanctions imposed over Russian aggression in Ukraine.
“I hope it would not impact us … our relation is too strong and it has been for too long,” ONGC boss Alka Mittal said.
ONGC Videsh, the overseas investment arm of state-run ONGC, has a 20% stake in the project, which was once estimated to contain 17.1 trillion cubic feet in recoverable gas reserves.
There are fears that Moscow will seize upstream oil and gas investments as tensions over its war in Ukraine escalate. India has expressed neutrality over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Moscow economic newspaper Kommersant said on Thursday that Russian authorities have publicly acknowledged the serious problems the Sakhalin-1 project faces.
It said oil production on it almost stopped after ExxonMobil recalled its technical specialists from Russia.
Kommersant said there were no signs as yet of a Russian takeover.
“The difficulties of Sakhalin-1 are associated, among other things, with the inability to fully operate the equipment after the departure of the foreign partner,” the paper said.
- George Russell, with Reuters
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