Exxon, Rosneft to Outline Arctic Drilling Plan Next Week

Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), the largest U.S. oil producer, and Russian energy company OAO Rosneft (ROSN) will present details of their $3.2 billion joint-exploration agreement to analysts in New York on April 18.

Exxon Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson, Rosneft CEO Eduard Khudainatov and Igor Sechin, Russia’s deputy prime minister, will make presentations at the event, Exxon said on its website today.

In exchange for gaining access to billions of barrels of crude in the Russian sectors of the Arctic Ocean and Black Sea, Exxon will grant Rosneft the right to invest in Texas shale fields and deep-water projects in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a joint statement issued when the agreement was announced in August.

Exxon, based in Irving, Texas, replaced BP Plc (BP/) as Moscow- based Rosneft’s partner in the Arctic exploration project after the U.K. explorer’s billionaire partners in the TNK-BP Holding (TNBP) venture blocked the agreement last year.

Russian President-Elect Vladimir Putin yesterday proposed tax breaks to help make foreign investment in the nation’s oil industry more profitable.

The export duty for new offshore projects may be canceled and the extraction tax may be set at 5 percent of the hydrocarbon sales price for some Arctic offshore fields, Putin said yesterday in Moscow during a meeting of government and energy industry officials. Incentives may be granted for as long as 15 years from the start of production, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Joe Carroll in Chicago at jcarroll8@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Susan Warren at susanwarren@bloomberg.net