By Igor Yusufov
Igor Yusufov is an electrical engineer with more than 30 years’ experience in the oil and gas industry. He was deputy chair of the Russian Federation Economic Security Committee and deputy industry minister, chair of the Russian States Reserves Committee, and later general director of the Russian State Reserves Agency. He led the Energy Ministry and then was appointed special envoy of the Russian President for international energy cooperation.
The first issue to be mentioned of this 2nd day of February of 2017 is the close Senate vote with the positive result — Mr. Tillerson is confirmed as the new American Secretary of State. In my opinion this could be an historic day to remember as this fact provides a very clear indication of the international agenda of the new American Administration which pledged to make America great again. And the general idea of this nomination in the Trump team is that every greatness is based on energy.
I have known Mr. Tillerson since April 2002, when I was Russian Energy Minister and Mr. Tillerson senior executive vice-president of ExxonMobil. One of the burning issues we discussed on our first meeting was financial and technical details of the PSA of ExxonMobil projects in Russia. Another important point was the state of the bilateral energy dialogue proclaimed by President Vladimir Putin and President George W. Bush. I would stress that Mr. Tillerson showed deep understanding both of professional matters and of Russia as an economic and cultural entity.
Since then we met several times and I dare say, that Mr. Tillerson always showed firmness in defending the business of his company. After the 2014 introduction of sanctions, ExxonMobil did not break up the dialogue with Rosneft, the major Russian oil and gas company — it remained in the Sakhalin projects.
My hope is that a combination of genuine American toughness and deep understanding of the energy branch worldwide would be the key to the success of the new chief of the American Diplomacy.
By the way it was Mr. Tillerson’s undisputable diplomatic gift which led to the success of the two bilateral Commercial Energy summits organized under the patronage of President Bush and President Putin. Mr. Tillerson contributed greatly to the success of the first U.S.-Russia Commercial Energy Summit in Houston, Texas, and the second one we held in Saint-Petersburg, Russia.
I am sure that it is not only a deep knowledge of Russia which brought Mr. Tillerson to the highest position in the Department of State. But at the same time oil and gas projects which can be carried out in Russia with American companies as key contributors of investment, technologies, and management could contribute to the new American greatness far more that previous declarations on politically motivated sanctions.
A broad energy dialogue between the U.S. and Russia, as undisputable energy superpowers, had many attractive features which deserve to be analyzed at the present stage. Fifteen years ago, in the framework of this exchange, working groups held their sessions on oil spills prevention, energy saving technologies and international oil markets. National energy strategies were compared to find new ways of cooperation. <y expectation is that certain agreements in national energy policies, pursued internally and internationally, could be profitable for both energy superpowers. Highly qualified energy professionals, like Mr. Tillerson, could contribute to the creation of a safer world – from the point of view of politics and energy.
Last week end Presidents Trump and Putin held a telephone conversation that marked the restoration of the economic cooperation as the centerpiece of the future bilateral interaction. With energy being the base of every economic development this was an encouraging signal for all actors of the energy scene.
My proposal is the convocation of the Third Russian-American Commercial Energy Summit, where the parties could conduct an in-depth analyzes of the situation inherited and define the challenges for international energy in the context of the future energy cooperation. I dare say that this cooperation is not only promising (as for common oil and gas production project of Russian soil) but to a certain extent necessary. It is essential to conduct substantial talks on pricing policies before the U.S. comes to international markets with huge amounts of shale hydrocarbons. Russia has a rich dialogue experience with other main producers and their organizations such as OPEC. And we are ready to share this experience for the common goal – the stability on global markets.
In 2011 I founded a private investment fund called name “Energiya” that is now worth an estimated $2 billion. We conduct exploration and production of oil and gas in Russian Siberia and on the Yamal peninsula implementing American technologies: for example Halliburton has been attracted to supervision of drilling activities. We are glad that even amidst sanctions we continued the general cooperation line with our American counterparts and hope to contribute to the new bilateral energy dialogue which seems now possible – and promising.
#Russia #Energy #Trump #Putin #American #U.S. #relations
