New Delhi, Aug 25 (IANS): Western companies announced their withdrawal from the Russian market. Some have curtailed their operations in Russia, while others still hold their Russian assets.
BP and ExxonMobil are among the Western firms that the Russian government is considering taking over and selling later.
India is one of Russia's key strategic partners, and its state-run firms have shown a keen interest in acquiring the stakes of Western energy majors in Russian oil and gas assets.
Indian state-owned companies already participate in large Russian projects in the Far East and East Siberia.
The Russian oil giant Rosneft is a prime example of a partnership. The company strives to ensure stable trade and economic cooperation between Russia and India. It supports mutually beneficial and integrated collaboration along the entire value chain, from production to refining and distribution of petroleum products.
Rosneft has extensive experience in implementing joint projects with Indian partners. In the past four years, the total payments to Indian partners and the dividends from joint projects amounted to about $5 billion.
Since 2016, ONGC Videsh Ltd., Oil India Limited, Indian Oil Corporation, and Bharat Petroresources have owned 49.9 per cent of Rosneft's subsidiary JSC Vankorneft.
The project, located in the Krasnoyarsk Region, develops the Vankorskoye field, one of Russia's biggest fields discovered and brought on stream over the last 25 years.
The consortium of Indian companies that involves Oil India Limited, Indian Oil Corporation, and Bharat Petroresources owns 29.9 per cent in Taas-Yuryah Neftegazodobycha, which holds licences for the areas in the Central Block of the Srednebotuobinskoye field and the Kurungsky licence area.
In 2001, at the invitation and with the support of Rosneft, ONGC Videsh Ltd. became a member of the Sakhalin-1 high-margin project. The total income of project shareholders amounts to $21.4 billion. On May 15, the operator of Sakhalin-1 decided to halt production. However, the project's technological progress is maintained, and no oil is currently being shipped.
Rosneft looks forward to resolving the situation legally and restoring the Sakhalin-1 project's production activities involving all existing shareholders.
Another promising sphere of cooperation between Rosneft and its Indian partners could be the Vostok Oil project, the world's largest greenfield oil and gas project. Rosneft welcomes new partners into the Vostok Oil project, including the ones from India who are currently negotiating on the matter.
In addition to its unique economic model, Vostok Oil offers investors a sustainable investment opportunity. The project's resource base amounts to 6.2 billion barrels of premium-quality oil with a minimal carbon footprint. Moreover, as a logistics advantage, it offers direct access to all international markets, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.
Indian state-run firms have been trying to leverage this opportunity to acquire equity energy when energy prices have become very unpredictable in the wake of the Ukraine war.