"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.

LNG cannot reach every corner of Europe: there may be a lot of under-used capacity in import terminals in the Iberian peninsula but these are not useful for security of supply in mainland Europe except where they have reloading facilities. There is very little transport capacity overland into France.

Сейчас очень много неопределенности по цене. Поэтому нет смысла оперативно реагировать на текущую конъюнктуру, надо понимать, насколько долго эта цена будет держаться. Я считаю, что средние по году $50 за баррель - это цена, которая может отражать баланс спроса и предложения. Она может быть чуть ниже и чуть выше, условно говоря, колебания могут быть между $40-50 и между $50-60.

In theory, the European Union is pursuing a single energy market, based on the needs of all 28 EU nations. It is also meant to be united against Russia as it seeks to defend the interests of Ukraine following Moscow's seizure of Crimea in March last year.

The Nord Stream II pipeline would stretch 1,200 kilometers across the Baltic Sea, from Vyborg on the Russian coast to Griefswald, Germany. Once completed, it would have the capacity to transport 27.5 billion cubic meters of gas directly to Germany, circumventing Ukraine and the Central and Eastern European states. Russia’s Gazprom would own 50% of the project, and France’s Engie, Austria’s OMV, Royal Dutch Shell, and Germany’s BASF and E.ON each would own a 10% share.

The additional volumes are roughly what Gazprom has been piping to the EU through Ukraine, raising concerns that the new route would allow Russia to strip Kiev of much of its remaining economic leverage and an important source of income.

Rosneft received advance payments for oil supplies worth more than $15bn in the third quarter — the first large-scale financing that the state-controlled Russian group has secured since western sanctions were imposed upon it.