As you may have read, ExxonMobil recently signed an agreement with Russian oil company Rosneft to jointly explore for and produce oil in Russia, the United States and other parts of the world.

For more than 15 years, we’ve partnered with Rosneft on the successful Sakhalin-1 project, which has produced hundreds of millions of barrels of oil for export to world markets since start up.

We look forward to further achievements with Rosneft in this latest venture, which not only benefits our two companies, but also the growing number of energy consumers around the world who depend on affordable and reliable supplies of energy.

Russia is home to some of the most promising prospects for new oil and natural gas discoveries in the world today – yet much of this endowment is relatively unexplored or located in challenging environments. With this agreement, ExxonMobil and Rosneft together will be able to participate in the exploration and development of millions of acres in the Kara Sea in the Arctic Circle, as well as in the Black Sea.

If our exploration efforts are successful, we’ll be able to apply our technical expertise in Arctic offshore production – gained from nearly 80 years of company experience  – to safely and efficiently bring this new oil and gas to market.  At Sakhalin, for example, we’ve drilled some of the longest extended-reach-drilling wells in the world to produce oil and natural gas located under the icy ocean. And in northeast Canada, we’ve built the world’s first and only iceberg-resistant gravity-based production platform to help produce oil from far below the Atlantic Ocean.

Together, ExxonMobil and Rosneft will create the Arctic Research and Design Center for Offshore Development in St. Petersburg, which will develop new technologies to support the joint Arctic projects.

The agreement also allows Rosneft the opportunity to participate in exploration and development of ExxonMobil projects in multiple countries, including deepwater projects in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and tight oil fields in Texas. The work done in Texas could be a catalyst for developing tight oil resources in Western Siberia.

This agreement is an example of the forward-thinking and long-term planning that will be necessary to fulfill the energy needs of a growing world economy. Such long-term approaches are critical, as global energy demand is expected to be about 25 percent greater in 2030 than it is today.

At ExxonMobil we have commented on many occasions about the importance of partnerships between international and national oil companies in helping make possible new energy projects to meet growing global energy needs. Such partnerships bring the unique and complementary skills of IOCs and NOCs together – in areas such as technology deployment, resource access, geological knowledge and financial capacity – and help enable the investment needed to make world-scale energy projects a reality.

We look forward to working together with Rosneft following the announcement of our agreement, and to the new opportunities that lie before us to help meet global energy requirements.

You can learn more about the agreement in our recent announcement.