Putin will shut out US oil companies.
Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2006 10:29 pm
This is just misinterpretation. There's no US oil consultants left to do the job since the Iraq contracts were restricted to US-only applications from them and nobody else. They all have the keys to Fort Knox indefinitely. Why would these cash-rich cowboys want to take on a chilly Siberian gas field as well? The Russians are resigned to making do with experienced fellow-European ice-dwellers that have forty years' gas field expertise as second-best alternatives.