Russian oil firm Rosneft said today that it had entered a broad partnership with Royal Dutch/Shell to co-operate in oil production and refining in Russia and elsewhere.
"The agreement (with Shell) reached today will allow our companies to seriously widen the scope and geography of our work," Sergei Bogdanchikov, president of state-controlled Rosneft, said in a statement.
A source close to one of the companies said the two firms were considering joint projects in Russia and one more country.
"But it has nothing to do with the sale by Rosneft of its 50 per cent stake in Tomskneft. It is not in this agreement," the source said.
Rosneft said last week it had sold 50 per cent of Tomskneft, a 230,000 barrels per day production unit it had bought from bankrupt oil firm Yukos at a state-forced auction in May.
Shell already has state-controlled gas monopoly Gazprom as a majority partner in the $21-billion Sakhalin-2 project. Shell also develops the Siberian Salym oil project and has said it was looking for a third big development in Russia.