Speaking out: Rex Tillerson
Tillerson delivers Sakhalin snub
ExxonMobil boss Rex Tillerson shrugged off growing pressure on the US supermajor to sell gas from the Sakhlain 1 development to Gazprom, saying that the Russian state-run giant was just one of the project's potential customers.
"We have been in discussions with Gazprom very much on the same basis that we're in discussions with any potential purchaser of the gas," Reuters quoted Tillerson telling a news conference in London late last night.
Earlier this week, Gazprom asked the Kremlin to block the ExxonMobil-led project from selling gas to China. The gas monopoly's deputy chief executive Aleksandr Ananenkov said the gas should be sold to Gazprom to supply the domestic market.
However, Tillerson said Gazprom wanted to use the gas to underpin an expansion of a liquefied natural gas export terminal in the south of Sakhalin Island.
Russian state-controlled Rosneft , India's Oil & Natural Gas Corporation and a Japanese consortium, Sodeco, are also shareholders in Sakhalin 1.