Russia Is Wooing Western Energy Companies, but Will They Return?

Kremlin officials are dangling the prospect of lucrative investment deals for American energy companies, apparently seeking to convince President Trump that large economic gains could come from siding with Moscow in ending the war in Ukraine and scrapping economic sanctions on Russia.

There is no doubt that Russia has vast troves of oil and natural gas, but an effort to lure American or other Western energy companies to undertake Russian projects is likely to encounter skepticism, not least because of the companies' recent history in Russia.

Nevertheless, Kirill Dmitriev, a Kremlin financial official, expressed optimism last week about the prospect, pitching the potential for investment opportunities by Western companies, including oil producers.

Energy companies would need to weigh access to troves of oil and natural gas against potential pitfalls, including reputational damage from taking part in an industry that has financially sustained a government waging war against its neighbor.

“Russia has enormous resources and scale always matters” to large energy companies, said Ben Cahill, an energy analyst at the University of Texas at Austin. “But aboveground risk is the killer,” he added, using industry parlance for political and legal problems.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union more than three decades ago, Western energy giants including Exxon Mobil, BP and Shell spent years carving out a role for themselves in the Russian oil industry.