Senior U.S. and Russian officials discussed bilateral energy deals on the sidelines of the talks on reaching a peace agreement in Ukraine earlier in August, sources with knowledge of the negotiations told Reuters on Tuesday.
According to some of these sources, the potential energy agreements between the U.S. and Russia were proposed as an incentive for Putin to agree to a peace in Ukraine and a path forward for the United States to ease sanctions on Moscow. The potential deals were discussed during the visit of U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow in early August, when he met with Vladimir Putin ahead of the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska on August 15.
The potential deals that were discussed, including briefly at the Alaska summit, included ExxonMobil returning to the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas development project, which the U.S. supermajor quit after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the anonymous sources told Reuters.
The U.S. and Russian officials also discussed Russia potentially buying U.S. equipment for its LNG projects, including the heavily sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project that’s struggling to take off and find buyers.
To coincide with the Trump-Putin meeting, the Russian President amended his decree from 2022 giving full Russian ownership to Sakhlain-1, and opened the door to a return of foreign companies to the oil and gas project.
However, since the Alaska summit, no breakthrough in the peace talks has been achieved, much to the frustration of President Trump, who threatens o-and-off “severe consequences” and new sanctions against Russia if Putin continues to reject peace talks.
A much-hyped Putin-Zelenskyy meeting is not happening anytime soon, analysts say.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov doesn’t see such a meeting as possible in the immediate future, either.
“Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy, when the agenda would be ready for a summit,” Lavrov told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” program that aired Sunday.
“And this agenda is not ready at all,” Lavrov said.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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