US Sanctions Hamper Russian Oil Projects

Sanctions against the Russian oil industry will affect oil production in 2020, according to the report from the Analytical Credit Rating Agency. According to the report, after the introduction of sanctions in 2014-15, a number of long-term projects for developing new oilfields were canceled, TASS reported. In particular, it affected nine large joint projects of Rosneft and ExxonMobil, which for the latter meant a loss of investments and for Rosneft—the need to start looking for new partners and investors. Restrictions on oil and gas companies introduced in 2014 will affect oil production rates in 2020. Fields that became operational after 2013 should contribute to production in 2019-20, but new technological and investment incentives will be needed in 2020 for both mature and new fields but will be restrained due to sanctions, ACRA said. At the same time, ACRA's experts believe that the ban on exporting various types of equipment to Russia gave a positive impetus to the development of domestic machinery and oil and gas equipment.