Exxon to Drill In the Arctic...For Russia

The rest of the world isn't going to play by our silly environmental rules:

MOSCOW (Reuters) – U.S. oil major ExxonMobil and Russia’s Rosneft unveiled an offshore exploration partnership on Wednesday that could invest upward of $500 billion in developing Russia’s vast energy reserves in the Arctic and Black Sea.

The deal, between the world’s largest listed oil firm and the world’s top oil producing nation, was the product of nearly a year of talks and came about despite a history of mutual distrust between Washington and Moscow dating back to the Cold War and recent difficulties for other Western firms in Russia.

“Experts say that this project, in terms of its ambitions, exceeds sending man into outer space or flying to the moon,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, a key architect of the partnership, told a briefing for analysts in New York.

Under the deal, signed in Moscow on Monday, Exxon and state-controlled Rosneft will seek to develop three fields in the Arctic with recoverable hydrocarbon reserves estimated at 85 billion barrels in oil-equivalent terms.

The Canadians are shipping their oil to China, and now Russia will be drilling in areas that will allow them to tap into oil deposits accessible to America...if only America had the will and wisdom to go after them.

If I was president I would declare an energy emergency and immediately suspend all the environmental nonsense that keeps us from going after our own oil.  Let the environwackos wail - they couldn't stop me with all the liberal judges in the world.