Zee Beam News

Friday, 11 July, 2008 - Upstream OnLine - Influential Russian vice-premier Igor Sechin said today that the country poses no threat to global energy security as its oil companies are every bit as involved in world markets as international competitors. Sechin, who is also chairman of state-controlled oil giant Rosneft, said he did not understand why the West perceived Russia as posing an "energy threat" and that the country's oil majors were honouring all contractual obligations, wrote Rueters. "I don't understand why Russian companies generate such anxiety," he told reporters on an aeroplane descending toward the northwestern Russian city of Arkhangelsk. "Russian oil companies are these same global companies," he said, adding the country's oil producers floated shares and operated abroad and were fulfilling all the terms of their international contracts. Oil companies from Russia, the world's largest exporter after Saudi Arabia, have been seeking to expand abroad in recent years.