Word: bbl
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...stake in the firm. The two companies promptly announced a strategic alliance to develop oil reserves in the Russian Arctic and potentially work together in Iraq. For Jim Mulva, Conoco's president and chief executive, the deal amounted to a coup, giving Conoco access to 8 billion bbl. of proven oil reserves at relatively modest cost. Lukoil was delighted too because it is counting on the Americans to help it extract and market the oil more efficiently. But as Mulva and Lukoil president Vagit Alekperov toasted their accord with champagne, they were careful not to mention the one issue that...
...deep in Siberia or above the Arctic Circle, and transport depends on clunky Soviet-era railways and pipelines whose leaks are frequently decried by Greenpeace and other environmental activists. Nonetheless, the Western oil companies are eager to export Russia's oil reserves, which are conservatively estimated at 70 billion bbl.--more than double those...
...three recently signed preliminary agreements to work with state-controlled Gazprom, an oil-and-gas behemoth in which Germany power company E.On holds a 6% stake. There is widespread speculation in Moscow that Sibneft, an oil company controlled by billionaire Roman Abramovich with proven reserves of 4 billion bbl., could be in play. Sibneft was scheduled to merge with Yukos until Khodorkovsky's troubles erupted. Abramovich and Yukos jostled for power for weeks afterward, until the merger finally unraveled earlier this year, prompting speculation that Sibneft may be looking for a Western buyer...
...Khodorkovsky--now behind bars--who first demonstrated to the world just how viable Russian oil can be. Back in the 1990s, that wasn't self-evident. The collapse of the Soviet Union was accompanied by a slide in Russian oil production, from a peak of almost 11 million bbl. per day in 1987 to just 6 million in 1996. Yukos blazed the trail--and helped reverse the oil slump--by investing heavily in existing fields in Siberia, bringing in Western technology and dozens of American and other experienced foreign managers. Partnering with Schlumberger, a U.S.-based oil-field-services company...
...into the difficulties foreign companies typically face in Russia, from a volatile economy to unreliable partners. The company's first foray into the Russian market, in 1997, ended badly after a firm in which it took a 10% stake went bankrupt. At the time, oil was near $10 per bbl., the Russian economy was sliding into crisis, and BP found its stake wasn't big enough to influence management of the company, called Sidanco. BP also ended up at loggerheads with other Russian shareholders at Sidanco, members of the private Alfa investment group headed by billionaire Mikhail Fridman. But Sidanco...