EXXONMOBIL HAS formed an Arctic exploration partnership with Rosneft, the Russian state oil company, in a strategic coup over rival BP.

In return Exxon, the world’s largest company by market capitalisation, will give the state-controlled Russian group access to oil reserves in the US Gulf of Mexico, onshore fields in Texas and elsewhere.

The $3.2 billion agreement follows this year’s collapse of an Arctic exploration deal between Rosneft and BP. The two companies’ aborted tie-up was blocked by the oligarch partners in BP’s existing Russian joint venture, TNK-BP. It underscores international oil companies’ determination to explore and develop the Russian Arctic, one of the few places in the world with large, untapped oil and gas reserves.

Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, attended the deal’s signing yesterday. Under the agreement, the two companies will together invest $3.2 billion in exploring the Arctic Kara and Black seas. They also plan to invest $450 million in a St Petersburg-based research centre.

The three offshore blocks in the Russian Kara Sea are the same ones that Rosneft planned to explore with BP. Rex Tillerson, Exxon’s chairman and chief executive, said the agreement represented “a significant strategic step by both companies”.

He added that Exxon had been encouraged by the Russian government’s pledge to reform oil taxation and improve investment conditions for foreign and Russian oil companies. The US group has previously encountered Russian opposition over its plans to sell China gas from the offshore Sakhalin one project – also a joint venture with Rosneft – in Russia’s far east.

Igor Sechin, Russia’s deputy prime minister, said the Exxon-Rosneft agreement foresees $200 billion-$300 billion in direct investment over 10 years. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011)