The future without oil shown to Russia: technological sanctions to hit long-term development

The “Oil” sanctions of the United States and the EU, have already impacted on all the major oil and gas companies of Russia, and have closed opportunities for further cooperation with them in the field of offshore production and oil shale. This will influence almost all promising projects of the companies in this area, on which they counted in the future (except, perhaps, Lukoil’s Caspian projects, which are not formally subject to the sanctions). It will be difficult and expensive for Russia to cope on its own or to replace Western technologies and contractors, experts think, but the Government has already promised to give the industry an access to the money of the National Welfare Fund.

New sanctions against Russia, published by the United States after the EU on Friday, have concerned not only the state-owned oil companies - Rosneft and Gazpromneft, but also private ones – Lukoil and Surgutneftegaz. For the first time, Gazprom was included in the list, but only on its oil projects. As the Ministry of Finance of the United States explained, the ban on the supply of technologies and services related to deep, offshore Arctic and shale projects in Russia or Russian waters, if they have the "potential of oil production" (regardless of whether the gas production is envisaged).