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Shell Plans to Increase Russia Investments | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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MOSCOW (AFP) -British-Dutch oil major Shell plans to increase investments in Russia despite losing control of the giant Sakhalin-2 project earlier this year, the company’s CEO said in an interview published on Friday.

“If we see other opportunities for setting up offshore joint ventures, then we will look at them without a doubt,” Jeroen van der Veer said in an interview with the Kommersant daily.

Shell was the operator of Sakhalin-2, one of the biggest private oil and gas projects in the world, but was forced to sell to state-run gas giant Gazprom in April after coming under pressure from Russian authorities.

Van der Veer mentioned as investment possibilities other projects on the island of Sakhalin in far eastern Russia, as well as the Shtokman gas field project in the far north.

Shell is interested in investing “as much as possible in upstream” in Russia, as well as in “profitable downstream,” such as by creating a network of petrol stations in Russian cities, he said.

But the CEO warned that Shell would not be ready to operate as a subcontractor in Russia and said that binding contracts were a key requirement for its investments.