Research On Legal Issues Of International Cooperation In The Oil Sector Of Russia

Energetic problems play a key role in determining the foreign policystrategies of the international relations nowadays. The global processes of worlddevelopment directly or implicitly depend on energetic. Security of energysupply and regular access to energy resources are both of primal importance foralmost all the countries. The energy agenda has long stopped being an intra statequestion both economically and politically.A great part of local conflicts and crises are closely associated withpetroleum industry. And the importance of the energetic factor for theinternational politics is going to continue to increase under the influence ofglobalization processes. There could be named at least three main reasons ofsuch a great influence that the oil problem has on international relations. First,all the countries are highly invested in getting energy security assurances. Thepermanent increase of the importance of the energy resources in theinternational politics has been the reason beneath both hidden antagonism aswell as direct confrontation between the leading countries fighting to gaincontrol over them. Second, the fact that oil(-trading) business is still one of themost profitable type of business activities strongly affects the politics of all thecountries involved. It refers to both individual companies and whole countries.Third, it is also highly important that the world oil policy isdictated/determined not only by countries but also by large oil corporations withall inherent passive approach towards foreign policy. Thus, internationalcooperation in the energy sector is an integral part of a modern world.Providing a legal security of cooperation is the corner stone of a saidcooperation. International organizations controlling oil delivery are beingestablished, international agreements and charters are being signed to provideguarantees, the internal legislation of the countries is being adjusted/reconciled.New legal principles of global energy cooperation are being made. But it’scrucial for the countries which are about to start oil cooperation to understandnot only the specifics of the international law but the internal legislation of thehost country as well.Russia is one of the leading countries in the global energy resourcesbalance; the country is an active part of the international cooperation in theproduction and supply/delivery to the fuel and energy resources markets. The position of the country in the global carbohydrate market is of the highimportance. In the recent few years, Russia has been supplying12%of theglobal oil trade. More than4/5of Russian oil is exported to European countries,where the market share of Russian oil is about30%. But recently, due to sharpand unpredictable oil price dynamics, the negative effects of the GreatRecession, the danger of potential supply deficit in the post-crisis period, theambiguous prospective/possibility of entering into international agreements onenvironmental policy and climate change, and military conflicts in some oil-producing Asian countries, the level of market uncertainty and market risk hasincreased remarkably.At the same time the efforts to enhance energy market long-term stabilityas long as to provide global energy security guarantees without making threatsto ny party’s national interests are getting more and more support andunderstanding nowadays. Russia’s national oil policy has experiencedsignificant changes after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Governmenthave started to pass legislations to foster rapid development of the petroleumindustry, with foreign enterprises assigned to play an important role in theprocess. The Laws On Subsoil, The Licensing Regulation of SubsoilResources, On Foreign Investments have been adopted to control foreigninvestments, subsurface resources management and other aspects; the existinglaws have been amended as well. Moreover, widely accepted forms ofinternational cooperation (e. g. PSAs etc.) have been codified. But while theRussian Government is actively trying to improve internal legislation, there stillare a lot of recurring problems and insidious threats foreign enterprises carryingon business in Russian oil industry have to face, regardless of the businessoperation types.This research will analyze the contents and legal considerations ofinternational cooperation in the energy sector and, specifically, the cooperationin the petroleum industry; the research will particularly focus on the analysis ofoil cooperation types, consider the present situation of the Russian oil industryand the Russian oil legislation concerning foreign enterprise busines s activitiesin the oil industry, study the problems the foreign enterprises are likely toencounter and suggest potential solutions for these problems.