Business and Government talk about how to overcome the sanctions against the Russian oil industry

The Sochi forum has become a good opportunity for business and Government to announce their stance on Western sanctions against the oil industry of the Russian Federation. Oil companies continue to insist that the sanctions don’t yet have a significant impact on their current activities. However, the ministries and companies themselves are mobilized, taking measures of import substitution and Rosneft and Novatek asked to allocate about 100 billion rubles to each of them from the National Welfare Fund (NWF).

On August 1st, the EU and the United States banned the supply of equipment for deepwater geological exploration and production of oil in the Arctic and at the deposits of shale oil in Russia. In September, the sanctions were tightened: now it is prohibited even to provide services for such projects. At the same time, if the constraints of the EU concern the whole of the Russian oil and gas sector, the United States indicated specific recipients: Gazprom, Gazpromneft, Rosneft, Lukoil and Surgutneftegaz. In addition, under the last round of the sanctions, imposed on September 12th, the European Union, in particular, restricted access to the capital markets of the EU for a number of Russian companies, including Rosneft, Transneft and Gazpromneft.