Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Corporate welfare and a free pass on sanctions, too!


That would be like getting TANF, SNAP, Unlimited Unemployment benefits, a lifetime bus pass and the proverbial Cadillac too with congressional blessing. And that is what our All American Oil Giant Exxon is getting with Russia.
Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), which this month extended its partnership with Russia’s OAO Rosneft (ROSN), hasn’t had to change its business in the country amid Ukraine-related sanctions and said such steps are typically ineffective.

“We don’t find them to be effective unless they are very well implemented,” Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson said today during a shareholders meeting in Dallas. Authorities imposing the sanctions should consider “who are they really harming?”

Exxon is among American oil producers that ignored U.S. State Department recommendations to skip an energy forum in St. Petersburg last week as it extended a pact with Rosneft involving drilling for crude in the Arctic and Siberia. Exxon, through a 2011 deal with the state-run crude producer, owns drilling rights across 11.4 million acres of Russian land, including vast swaths of the Kara Sea...

The travel ban on Sechin has so far not affected collaboration with Exxon, which is currently working with Rosneft to drill an exploratory well in the Arctic this year, Tillerson said. The companies’ partnership gives Rosneft the ability to buy stakes in Exxon’s North American projects in exchange for Exxon’s access to the Russian Arctic.

“We have plenty of meetings with them in Russia,” Tillerson said. “It’s not impacted our ability to carry on the other business activities.”
As Mell Brooks once put it,


Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]





<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Subscribe to Posts [Atom]