ExxonMobil doesn’t plan a return to the Russian oil industry, the U.S. supermajor’s chief executive Darren Woods told the Financial Times on Thursday, noting that talks with Russia are being held on recouping billions of U.S. dollars of expropriated assets.
The U.S. and Russian administration have pushed for energy cooperation and the U.S. has reportedly pitched Exxon’s return to the Sakhalin 1 oil and gas project as an incentive for Vladimir Putin to sit down for negotiations for peace in Ukraine.
Executives from Exxon are part of discussions with Russian officials, but not about the supermajor to return to Russia, Woods told FT. Exxon is involved in the talks as it seeks to recoup $4.6 billion in assets that Russia has expropriated, the executive added.
“We don’t have any plans to re-enter Russia,” Woods told FT in an interview published on Thursday.
“This was really around settlement discussions around the arbitration associated with the expropriation of our assets in 2022,” Exxon’s top executive said.
Earlier this week, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergey Ryabkov, said that the United States and Russia continue to discuss economic cooperation, including in the Sakhalin 1 oil project.
“I can mention Sakhalin-1 as the most obvious example of discussions that have started,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying by Russia’s news agency Intefax, adding there are other areas in which talks have been held.
“We are ready to deepen these discussions and are open specifically to practical cooperation,” the Russian official said.
Exxon quit the Sakhalin-1 project after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which triggered an exodus of foreign oil firms and service providers.
To coincide with the Trump-Putin meeting, Vladimir Putin 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.
Back in 2022, Putin signed a decree to seize the Sakhalin-1 project, in which Exxon held a 30% stake.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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