Gazprom Neft, Russia’s fourth largest oil producer, has big plans for its Arctic oil operations, and it seems that neither sanctions nor production cuts can force it to quit its presence there. In fact, the oil division of Gazprom will try to turn itself into what its head of strategy and innovations called “ a benchmark ,” but not in terms of production. Gazprom Neft wants to become a benchmark in areas such as safety and efficiency, and most notably technology. Arctic drilling was one of the top targets of U.S. sanctions that banned U.S. oil companies—and their European peers—from sharing technological know-how with Russian producers. This may have slowed down the progress of Gazprom Neft and others in the Arctic, but it did not put an end to it. Not that it could: Russia’s energy industry has been working on Arctic exploration for much longer than the four […]