OREANDA-NEWS. The phenomenon that needs to be noted is the beginning of technological leaders, most of whom have American roots, penetrating the oil and gas industry. This was announced at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum by the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, according to a Russian news correspondent. He said that, in particular, it was Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook. “We see their significant investments in the development of universal technological solutions for processing large data arrays, developing alternative forms of transport, including unmanned vehicles and ecosystems of the“ sharing economy”, as well as in the world of financial and currency instruments”, said Sechin. According to him, investments "are made at a speed unprecedented until now and truly on a global scale".

He admitted the possibility that Facebook Global Coin cryptocurrency would be calculated for barrels of oil in the near future, “which at least is proof that some of those present here are engaged in the wrong business”. “At the same time, someone might get the illusion that technology giants will make the energy market fundamentally more transparent and efficient, becoming a panacea for solving the acute problems of modern times”, said Sechin.

“Greater flexibility often means greater volatility, and digitalization creates risks for maintaining commercial secrets and leads to the need to create new regulatory mechanisms, additional redundancy. Today, technology companies don't have high-quality answers to these fundamental questions”, said the head of Rosneft.

He said he wants to warn colleagues about the "incredible power" that technology companies have. “The ability to use their global status and access to information seems too tempting for the law enforcement agencies of one big country of the New World”, Sechin added. In his opinion, there is a possibility that as the American technology companies enter the energy market, “regulatory, sanctions and customs tariff imbalances are likely to increase”.