REUTERS
November 28, 2025 at 11:45 JST
A pipe is seen connecting a facility of the Sakhalin-2 project in Russia’s Sakhalin, seen in the upper part of the photo, with the liquefied natural gas carrier Grand Aniva on Feb. 18, 2009. (Hiroshi Kawai)
Securing energy from overseas, including from the Sakhalin Project, is extremely important for Japan’s energy security, Japan’s industry ministry said late on Thursday when asked about U.S. sanctions on a key shareholder in the Sakhalin-1 project.
Last month, Washington sanctioned Russian oil majors Rosneft, a Sakhalin-1 shareholder, and Lukoil in the most recent step to force the Kremlin to end the war in Ukraine. The waiver to end operations expired on November 21.
“Japan government continues to recognize that securing energy from overseas, including the Sakhalin Project, is extremely important for Japan’s energy security,” the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said in a statement to Reuters.
“We will take necessary measures to ensure that Japan’s stable energy supply is not compromised,” the statement added but declined to comment specifically on the sanctions’ impact on the project where METI is a shareholder.
U.S. ExxonMobil, which used to own a 30% stake in Sakhalin-1, left Russia in 2022 after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of that year.
Before Exxon’s exit, Rosneft and India’s ONGC Videsh owned a 20% stake in the project each and another 30% was controlled by the SODECO consortium involving METI, Marubeni , Itochu, Japan Petroleum Exploration and Inpex.
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