The Russian government has signed a decree appointing Rosneft’s affiliate Sakhalinmorneftegazn as the new operator of the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project located in the far eastern oblast of Sakhalin. In addition, the decree empowers the Russian government to decide whether foreign shareholders can retain stakes in the project. The field was owned by ExxonMobil (30%, operator) through the Sakhalin-1 venture, together with Japan's SODECO Consortium (30%), India's ONGC (20%) and Russia's Rosneft (20%).
The field has total reserves of 307 Mt of oil and 485 bcm of natural gas. Its oil output reached 11 Mt/year (220 kb/d) before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. ExxonMobil had expressed its intention of withdrawing from the project in March 2022 after the start of the war in Ukraine. However, the company, which took an impairment charge of US$4.6bn for its operations in in the country in April 2022, later complained about a decree issued in August 2022 by the government that is making a secure and environmentally safe exit from Sakhalin-1 difficult.
In July 2022, the Russian authorities signed a decree to take full control of the Sakhalin-2 LNG liquefaction project, which comprises two LNG trains with a total capacity of 10.8 Mt/year. The project was owned by a joint venture of Gazprom (50% plus one share), Shell (27.5% minus one share), Mitsui (12.5%) and Mitsubishi (10%).