Rosneft was granted the licenses by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in February 2013, after having been lobbying for this right.
According to Minister of Natural Resources and Eology Sergey Donskoy, Rosenft has withdrawn its applications to eight licenses in the Barents Sea, leaving only their Arctic application to work in the Sea of Okhotsk and Pechora Sea.
“They were having a dispute with Gazprom. Gazprom is dealing with this now”, was the short explanation Donskoy gave, according to Vzglyad.
According to Forbes, the Ministry of Natural Resources is not too happy with Rosneft chosing American company ExxonMobil as its strategic partner in the Arctic. The ministry wants as much Russian contractors as possible to work on the Russian Arctic shelf.
