ExxonMobil bangs Sakhalin 1 gas drum

ExxonMobil believes Russia should allow it to export gas from the Sakhalin 1 project off Russia’s east coast saying that, contrary to Gazprom’s claims, the gas is not needed by the local market.

“We are currently supplying the local market and fulfilling all of the local market’s capacity needs,” ExxonMobil’s head of oil and gas production for Europe, the Caspian and Russia, Robert Olsen, told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the International Petroleum Week conference.


“The local market, I don’t believe, is any way large enough to absorb the full development of Sakhalin 1.”

ExxonMobil signed a preliminary agreement to sell gas to China in 2006 and planned to supply this via pipeline.

However, Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom asked the Russian government in June to block the US supermajor from selling Sakhalin gas in Asia, saying the output was needed for Russia’s domestic market.

Upstream Online