Foreign Investors Seek Signs Of Russian Weakness

摘要

Exxon Mobil and Eni are looking - and hoping - for signs that Russia will soften its stance on foreign investors as lower oil prices start to impact the state budget. Eni wants to be allowed to keep hold of sizable Russian assets that it acquired at the auction of bankrupt Yukos. If Gazprom fails to meet the April deadline to exercise its $4 billion call option to buy 20% of Gazprom Neft and 51% in three Russian gas producers - Arcticgas, Urengoil and Neftegaztechnologia - it would transform the Italian company by adding at a single blow an extra 200,000 barrels per day of production and an additional 3 billion barrels of oil equivalent of reserves (NC Nov.6,p3).