Agreements from another era: Production Sharing Agreements in Putin's Russia: 2000 - 2007

Under President Vladimir Putin, the Russian government has reasserted state control over strategically important oil and gas projects. The Putin administration's actions toward the three projects governed by production sharing agreements-Kharyaga, Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-2-are often cited as examples of Russia's resurgent resource nationalism.This paper by Timothy Fenton Krysiek analyzes corporate-government relations over the PSA projects from 2000 through mid-2007 and argues the Kremlin's behavior toward Kharyaga, Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-2 can be explained through a combination of factors unique to each venture. Thus far, regional and domestic industrial factors have prevented the Putin administration from establishing a strategic direction for Kharyaga and Sakhalin-1 or intervening decisively against project operators Total and ExxonMobil. In the case of Sakhalin-2, a perfect storm of operational, legal, technological and geopolitical factors explain the government's bold and decisive action against Shell, the project's former operator.

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