[oil&gas] russia goes it alone

This was always on the cards. If western companies ever thought they would get their hooks into the Russian oil and gas fields, they were misunderstanding the Russian character. The truth is that the Russians knew they had to invite in western expertise to get things off the ground and in an analogous minor venture from the nineties – a crystal company based in Vladimir - the west discovered early on the nature of the relationship. Things have moved on from there; Russia has joined the global economy and learnt western marketing but they also learnt the hard way not to relinquish control to multi-nationals [I won’t name the particular two companies] and that’s what’s behind this move this week. Russia is proud of its advances and earlier, a bold statement about going it alone would have been greeted with derision on both sides but now the question is more, ‘Are they too early in doing this?’ rather than, ‘Should they do it?’ They were always going to do it.