ExxonMobil invited back to Sakhalin Putin has alluded to restarting commercial relations on several occasions. He has ordered the government to draw up rules for international companies that want to return to the Russian market. He also offered Trump to launch joint ventures to exploit Russia's vast reserves of critical minerals and rare earth metals (REMs), as well as suggesting the US invest in Russia's development of the huge oil and gas deposits in the Arctic. Likewise, ahead of the Alaska summit Trump suggested that Russia and the US jointly develop the mineral deposits in Alaska. Now things have taken a concrete step forward. Putin signed a decree allowing ExxonMobil to potentially return to the Sakhalin-1 oil project, opening the door for renewed US-Russia energy cooperation days before the start of the Alaska summit on August 15. ExxonMobil pulled off the project shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, booking hundreds of millions of dollars of losses as a result.