The U.S. government is to check if sanctions where violated when Russia this week struck a deal to sell a stake in oil producer Rosneft to a consortium of Qatar's sovereign fund and commodities trader Glencore, the White House said.

The expected fiscal consolidation and the subdued nature of the recovery are putting in place the conditions for the central bank to resume, in due course, monetary policy easing in a manner consistent with the 4 percent inflation target. However, the pace of easing should take into account the presence of external risks and the need to build credibility under the newly introduced inflation targeting regime.

Russia's oil and gas companies will continue to benefit from the weak rouble while avoiding a major tax hike in 2017, according to a new special report by Fitch Ratings.

Russia is the world's largest producer of crude oil (including lease condensate) and the second-largest producer of dry natural gas. Russia also produces significant amounts of coal. Russia's economy is highly dependent on its hydrocarbons, and oil and natural gas revenues account for more than 40% of the federal budget revenues.

Top Russian producer Rosneft expects the share of hard-to-recover oil production to rise to 11 percent of its total crude output by 2020, from 7 percent this year. Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of state gas producer Gazprom, is raising its share of output of hard-to-recover oil by tapping more reserves at the Messoyakha project and other assets.

The Western sanctions have left Gazprom largely unaffected, including with respect to the execution and extension of existing contracts and the conclusion of new contracts for gas supplies with foreign parties, and have had little bearing on the Company's ongoing activities.

"With regard to the cooperation with Saudi Arabia, the dialogue between our two countries is developing in a tangible way, whether in the framework of a multi-party structure or on a bilateral level," Novak was quoted as saying.

However, in conjunction with both lower oil prices and international sanctions, Russia has recently experienced five consecutive quarters of decline in GDP, representing that country's deepest economic downturn since 2008-09.

Gazprom's Deputy Chief Executive Alexander Medvedev said the BG holdings could be included in an asset swap deal between Gazprom and Shell that was announced last year. He did not say what the BG holdings were or where they were located.

Проект «Ямал СПГ» действительно относится к числу приоритетных, где мы соединяем три источника финансирования: это государственное финансирование (оно составляет только относительно небольшую часть, 10–15%), это финансирование по линии российских банков и финансирование от внешних инвесторов из разных источников. Инвестиции в «Ямал СПГ» составляют огромную сумму, это несколько десятков миллиардов долларов. Это огромный, очень сложный проект на Севере, но он даст колоссальный мультипликативный эффект.

“We remain committed to our strategic investment in Rosneft,” Scott Dean, a company spokesman, said by e-mail, adding that BP complies with all relevant European and U.S. sanctions. “In the low oil-price environment, Rosneft continues to deliver solid operational and financial performance, demonstrating the resilience of its business model.”

“The US has sought to work with Europe to lessen Europe's dependence on Russian energy and, particularly, gas supplies to weaken Russian leverage to use that gas supply for political purposes and has enjoyed some success, and this has been a cooperative venture. Three administrations working in the same direction, many of the same assumptions and people.”

In addition to Vietnam, Rosneft also has oil-producing assets in Venezuela and Canada. It has exploration prospects in several other countries, including in Mozambique and the US in partnership with ExxonMobil.

Россия является надежным поставщиком энергоресурсов для Евросоюза и наши отношения являются взаимовыгодными.

“The economy has held up surprisingly well when you consider the stresses on it” that include Western sanctions preventing banks and oil companies from issuing debt and imposing bans on high-tech oil equipment purchases, said Christopher Miller, Associate Director of the Brady-Johnson Grand Strategy Program at Yale ISS. “The reason is that government policies since 2008 have been relatively effective,” he said in a Feb. 18 presentation at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.