Alexei Miller and William Burns focused on opportunities for large American companies to participate in oil and gas projects in Russia, including buying the assets of bankrupt Yukos, formerly the country's number one oil producer, whose multi-billion dollar production units and facilities are set to be sold off through liquidation auctions to meet creditors' claims.
The officials also considered possible bids from U.S. companies for contracts on the vast Shtokman gas project off Russia's Arctic coast.
U.S. majors Chevron and ConocoPhillips, along with Norway's Statoil and Norsk Hydro and France's Total, had been short-listed as contenders to develop the field until a stunning announcement by Gazprom in October that it would develop the deposit on its own.
The Shtokman deposit is the only source of natural gas for the ambitious Nord Stream gas pipeline that will link Russia to Germany along the Baltic seabed, and is set to come online in 2010.
