openpolitics.com

For Western Oil Companies, Expanding in Russia Is a Dance Around Sanctions

To keep it that way, oil companies are publicly and privately pushing back against more sanctions by speaking out at shareholders’ meetings and by lobbying in Washington.

“We have a responsibility to stand with our partners in a difficult time,” Mr. Dudley of BP told an audience at the St. Petersburg forum.

.. From its swamps, tundra and wilderness, Russia pumps about the same volume of oil as Saudi Arabia, while exporting more energy than the desert kingdom, if oil and gas are counted together. Russia supplies about one-third of the gas to heat homes and generate electricity in Europe. And Russian oil and gas exports help ease energy reliance on the politically volatile Middle East.

For that reason, many analysts think Russian energy companies like Rosneft are simply too big to punish.