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Energy and salmon on the menu for Russian PM in Norway
AFP
OSLO
Petroleumworld.com 03 28 06Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov arrived in Norway on Tuesday for a two-day visit during which the issues of energy, salmon and Belarus are expected to top the agenda, Norwegian government officials said.
Fradkov was greeted in Oslo by his Norwegian counterpart Jens Stoltenberg and together the pair headed off to the west coast municipality of Aukra to tour a natural gas facility built by Norsk Hydro to treat gas from the Norwegian Ormen Lange offshore field currently under development.
Norsk Hydro and another Norwegian oil group, Statoil, are both courting the Russian semi-public group Gazprom to obtain a stake in Russia's huge Shtokman natural gas field in the Barents Sea.
The two Norwegian groups, as well as France's Total and ConocoPhillips and Chevron Texaco of the United States, have made Gazprom's short list and the Russian group is expected to announce its two or three foreign partners by April 15.
During Fradkov's visit, Norwegian officials are also expected to urge Russia to lift a ban on imports of fresh fish from Norway that was imposed on January 1. Russia is Norway's single largest export market for seafood.
Moscow introduced the ban because of high levels of lead and cadmium that Russian authorities said they found in Norwegian salmon and which they said were "more than 10 or 20 times the accepted level".
Finally, the Norwegian government also plans to discuss the political situation in Belarus with Fradkov.
Oslo has branded Belarus' repression of democracy protesters as "totally unacceptable", while Moscow has thrown its wholehearted support behind Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.
AFP 28 03 06 0946 GMTCopyright © 1994-2006 Agence France-Presse. All Rights Reserved.
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