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A rising Russian politician from St. Petersburg and a Texas oil executive from Wichita Falls met on frigid Sakhalin Island, off Russia’s eastern coast, in the fall of 1999 to begin what would turn out to be a warm, prosperous relationship—both for the men, who were born just months apart in 1952, and for those they were there to represent.At issue was whether ExxonMobil would proceed with a multibillion-dollar investment to develop a giant project drilling for oil and natural gas in the icy waters off Sakhalin. By all accounts, Rex Tillerson, then in charge of the company’s Russian division, and Vladimir Putin, then the newly appointed prime minister of Russia, heard what they needed to hear at that meeting. Twenty years later, Exxon estimated…

The post Exxon’s Russian Exit Ends a Messy, Prosperous Friendship appeared first on Texas Monthly.

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