Reuters: Insight - Sanctions bind Russia's energy elite to Putin

An offer by Gazprom to help rival Rosneft salvage an Arctic oil project shows how tightly sanctions have bound Russia's political and business elite together in the Ukraine crisis - an unintended consequence of the West's punitive measures.

Some Gazprom executives now say this month's little noticed proposal to loan Rosneft a drilling rig was "theoretical". It was quietly made after U.S. sanctions put in doubt a project with ExxonMobil to drill for oil in the Kara Sea.

The offer was certainly surprising. The relationship between the two state run firms has long been strained. Most recently Gazprom, successor to the Soviet gas ministry, has been worried by Rosneft's ambition to increase its gas output having become Russia's biggest oil producer, borne out in an intensifying price war for domestic gas consumers.
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