"We need to first develop oil fields in East Siberia, " he noted last month.

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Mr. Pedersen says he learned to navigate the country's government and establish local business ties in order to develop oil fields.

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Chinese companies are now also working with public North American and European companies to develop oil and gas fields.

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In the run-up to the Iraq war, it was reported that, in March 2003, Total SA negotiated a major contract with Saddam Hussein's regime to develop Iraq's southern oil fields.

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Iran would be able to cover its costs more successfully if it were able to attract foreign investors to develop its increasingly antiquated oil and gas fields.

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For Statoil, Halliburton will develop advanced systems to recover oil from aging fields in the North Sea.

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To kick-start an oil-services industry, Norway calibrated its national-content rules realistically in scope and duration, required foreign suppliers to work closely with local firms and forced Statoil, its national oil company, to bid against rivals to develop fields.

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Moreover, the sorts of fields that Western oil firms are starting to develop, in very deep water, or of nearly solid, tar-like oil, are ever more technically challenging.

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That means drillers would have to find and develop another 5 million barrels per day of domestic oil, while continuing to fight declining production from older fields.

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