fx maven

Russian Oil Is Worth the Risk

dear h-wood. i trust that you really have had alot of contact with russians, because you describe their habit of lying perfectly!. In fact Russians and Africans are the exact same in this respect, either they lie like they breathe, or or they couldn't tell the truth if they gave it their best effort....excect that Russians use their lies strategically, cleverly, and the Africans just expect Europeans to believe everything they say out of guilt from slavery...when I am out of Russia for two weeks everything goes pear-shaped without fail!!

Russian Oil Is Worth the Risk

Dear All ;

Russian petroleum production overall is declining. The easy oil in Western Siberia is already extracted and the money is in Putin's hidden accounts. The Sakhalin energy and Exxon projects on Sakhalin are the worst managed projects I have seen in my 25 years in Finance. There is oil as well in offshore Kamchatka but it would be a logistical and financial nightmare to try to manage these projects - that's why almost no body is there despite the recent $145 oil price. There is alot of Natural Gas, but the Sakhalin Gas has yet to reach market, and it will continue to be delayed as it always has for the last 5 years. And then compare that to sticking a pipe in the ground in the Middle East and selling the oil and gas at a gigantic profit. The Iraqis are piggybacking on American wartime expenditure and hoarding their easy-to-extract-oil. As they have almost no marginal costs they are the new 800 pound gorilla in the oil and gas business, Sakhalin and offshore Kamchatka are completely uncompetitive by comparison. To say nothing of the onerous Russian oil taxes (that even Gazprom and Rosneft complain about). Please, go to Kazakhstan and the Russian Far East and take your lumps in the oil business before you lead people to a certain mauling in the angry bear's claws.....