OREANDA-NEWS. April 24, 2017. President Donald Trump's administration does not plan to grant waivers to ExxonMobil and other US companies to bypass the sanctions on the Russian oil sector, US secretary of treasury Steven Mnuchin said today.

US sanctions, imposed in 2014, prohibit the sale or transfer of shale, deepwater and arctic drilling equipment and technology to Russian oil companies. ExxonMobil in 2015 and 2016 received waivers from the US Treasury Department to conduct "limited administrative actions" related to a joint venture established in 2011 with Russian state-controlled Rosneft.

Rosneft and ExxonMobil in 2014 drilled an exploration well in the Kara Sea in the Russian Arctic in 2014, discovering the Pobeda field, which Rosneft said could contain 730mn bl of crude and 338bn m? of gas. But ExxonMobil stopped its involvement in 2014, without giving up its equity, because of sanctions former president Barack Obama imposed against Russia over the Ukraine crisis.

ExxonMobil said it continues to comply with all sanctions applicable to its affiliates' investments in Russia. The major said it would have to assess the potential and feasibility of the Russian projects from which it pulled back, if the US sanctions are lifted.

Moscow hoped cooperation between US and Russian oil companies would be the first step toward improving the frozen bilateral ties. Rosneft earlier this month said it planned to resume drilling in 2019 in its joint venture with ExxonMobil in the Arctic. Rosneft chief executive Igor Sechin said that he discussed the Kara sea joint venture during Exxon chief executive Darren Woods' visit to Moscow last month. Exxon did not confirm the visit, saying it would not comment on private meetings.

"We sympathize with American businesses" affected by sanctions, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov told US secretary of state Rex Tillerson during a meeting in Moscow on 12 April. Tillerson served as the chief executive of Exxon when it established the joint venture with Rosneft in 2011 and was forced to scale it down in 2014.

Today's statement from the US Treasury, which administers the US sanctions regime, is likely a response to the Russian overtures.

Trump prior to taking office pledged to improve relations with Russia. But the bilateral relations fell to what both sides describe as "low level of trust" following Trump's decision on 6 April to order missile strikes against forces loyal to the Russian-backed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.