Russia keeps blending politics in its oil mix

Once a tent camp for oil geologists, this settlement of concrete slab houses, set among snowdrifts a two-day train ride north from Moscow, could be an important hub in the international oil trade. An export terminal on the Arctic Ocean a few hundred kilometers away, planned but never built, could deliver high-grade oil to the United States in nine days, far faster than supplies from the Middle East and Africa, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency.

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