The chief executive of Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell Ben van Beurden met President Vladimir Putin at his private residence on Friday, telling the Russian strongman that the company wanted to expand its operations in Russia.
The meeting between the Shell chief and Putin was the latest signal from the Kremlin that it is keen to keep ties with European big business despite the standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine.
Putin had held a similar meeting on March 26 with the chief executive of Siemens, Joe Kaeser, who reassured the Russian president that the German industrial giant planned a long-term investment in Russia.
Van Buerden told Putin that Shell wanted to expand the Sakhalin-2 offshore oil and gas project in the Pacific which is already delivering Russian LNG to Asian markets.
Greenpeace members hang a poster of Dutch activist Faiza Oulahsen on the Shell office building in Rotterdam on November 21, 2013
The project is controlled by Russian gas giant Gazprom with Shell as the main minority shareholder.
"I think that now is the right moment for expanding the project," van Buerden told Putin at his residence outside Moscow, Russian news agencies reported in comments translated into Russian.
"And of course one of the aims of my visit and meeting with you, Mr President, is to ask for support for the project for your side," he added.
Putin replied that he was glad Shell wanted to expand its operations in Russia and promised that "we will show the necessary administrative support."
Van Buerden told Putin that Shell had already been working in Russia for over a century and wanted to carry on.
"We have a long-term vision of cooperation with your country and we want to remain your reliable partner in the long term," he was quoted as saying.
According to media reports, European Union states with significant economic interests in Russia such as Germany, the Netherlands and Italy, are reluctant to impose tough sanctions against the country over its intervention in Ukraine.
Syrians watch security and emergency medical personnel working at the site of a car bomb explosion in al-Ushaq street in the Ekremah neighboorhood of Syria's central city of Homs on April 14, 2014
In February, a UN-led operation evacuated around half of the 3,000 people trapped under army siege in rebel-held parts of Homs city.
On Thursday, UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi urged the Syrian government and opposition to resume discussions about lifting the siege.
"It is a matter of deep regret that negotiations were brutally stopped and violence is now rife again when a comprehensive agreement seemed close at hand," Brahimi added.
On Friday afternoon, state media and the Observatory reported, a car bomb exploded outside a mosque in the government-controlled Homs district of Al-Walid.
State media said it detonated as people were leaving the mosque after weekly Friday prayers.
A Syrian gestures amid dust following reported air strikes by government forces in the Aleppo district of Ansari, in the southwest of the city, on April 15, 2014
Meanwhile, in northern Aleppo city, the Observatory said at least 10 people had been killed in shelling and aerial bombardment of rebel-held areas.
At least three children were among those killed, the monitoring group said.
The Syrian regime has waged a campaign of aerial raids including the use of explosives-packed barrel bombs that has prompted an exodus of civilians from rebel-held areas.
In recent days fighting between rebels and regime forces in the city has ramped up, with some 50 combatants from both sides killed in an opposition assault on a military base on an eastern outskirt of Aleppo, according to the Observatory.
And in Mleiha, in Damascus province, the Observatory said at least 15 air raids had been carried out as regime forces backed by fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah movement battled rebels on the ground.
