The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[DewDiligence]

XOM—No prices given for the three 30% stakes in north american assets XOM is selling the russians? How much did they leave on the table there to make this JV happen?

There was no precise answer to your question on the CC, but the CC was well worth a listen, IMO. There was a video focusing on the Kara Sea project at the 24-minute mark; this project was described as being more technically challenging than sending a man to the moon.

Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Igor Sechin, spoke on the CC through and interpreter and sounded to me as though he was protesting too much by saying that US companies unjustifiably mistrust Russia due to the Cold War past. Sechin conveniently omitted mention of Russia’s contribution to such mistrust by, for instance, its mistreatment of Shell in the Sakhalin project (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/02/05/8399125/index.htm ).

I don’t know whether the Rosneft collaboration will ultimately make money for XOM, but I’m pretty sure XOM is the only oil company with the wherewithal to make a collaboration of this magnitude work.