[politicalwit]

"Russians can't repair or maintain the equipment"

The Russian have never maintained their oil field equipment. One reason they brought in Shell and BP is to build new facilities and to maintain the fields and equipment. Let Shell and BP pull out and within 10 years their oil output will drop 75%.

[antiunion person]

I don't think it'll take that long for them to ruin everything.

[JasonC]

Correct. None of them want to work, all of them just want to collect rents by stealing. If put in charge of continual reinvestment in existing fields, the workers would simple siphon and side-deal and overcharge to steal the revenue for themselves. The reason they invite in the westerners in the first place is nobody there is honest enough to finish a job whose benefits will go to anybody else, and you can't promise them proceeds to get them to do it right because they simply will not believe you mean it.