RFE/RL: Exxon reportedly requests sanctions waiver to resume drilling in Russia

Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R) and former ExxonMobil chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson (L) attend at the ceremony of the signing of an agreement between state-controlled Russian oil company Rosneft and ExxonMobil in the Black Sea port of Tuapse on June 15, 2012.

Photo by AFP

Media are reporting that Exxon Mobil has applied for a waiver from U.S. sanctions on Russia so that it can resume drilling around the Black Sea with its partner, the Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft.

The Texas oil giant was run until this year by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who as the company’s chief executive opposed the sanctions imposed in 2014 over Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea. Since becoming secretary of state, Tillerson has backed the sanctions.