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MOSCOW: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday opened the door to foreign investment in Russia's gas-rich Yamal Peninsula, in an unusual meeting with global energy bosses deep in the remote Arctic region.
Putin held a televised meeting with a dozen foreign executives of companies including Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell and Conoco-Phillips in the region which holds immense but hard-to-access gas reserves.
"We are ready for a wide partnership and this is why we invited you here to Salekhard," the main town at the foot of the Yamal Peninsula, some 2,000 kilometres northeast of Moscow, Putin told the executives.
"We want that you feel yourselves to be part of our team and participants in this process," he added.
Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko made clear that Russia was interested in attracting "strategic foreign partners" to Yamal, a finger of land jutting into Arctic waters.
Potential partners would have to provide "innovative technologies" to assist in the extraction, production and marketing of the gas from Yamal, Putin said. They would also have to use Russian facilities and workers as much as possible, he added.
Western energy bosses at the meeting with Putin included chief executive of France's Total Christophe de Margerie, James Malva of US firm Conoco-Phillips and Wulf Bernotat, the chairman of Germany's E.ON, television pictures showed.
"We want that you see that Russia is working openly and transparently. If something is not clear then you have the chance to clarify it," Putin told the executives.
Russian state gas giant Gazprom and independent gas producer Novatek hold the licences for tapping the vast deposits on Yamal, and Russia had until now been reserved about the involvement of foreign firms.
The Yamal Peninsula is part of Russia's Yamal-Nenets region, one of the richest hydrocarbon bases on the planet, with enormous reserves estimated at 61 trillion cubic metres of natural gas.
Other energy bosses in attendance were the heads of Anglo-Dutch Royal Dutch Shell, US oil major Exxon Mobil, Norway's StatoilHydro, Malaysia's Petronas and South Korea's Kogaz, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported.
- AFP/sc
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