Russia vows to drill alone in Arctic

The American and European sanctions against the Russian oil industry have dashed, at least for now, the Western oil majors’ ambitions to drill in the Arctic Ocean.

But drilling will continue all the same, Russian government and state oil company officials have been taking pains to point out, ever since the sanctions took effect over the summer, Financial Review reports. 

“We will do it on our own,” Igor Sechin, the president of Russia’s state-controlled oil company, Rosneft, told journalists this month. “We’ll continue drilling here next year and the years after that.”