Far from the Siberian gas fields that it is best known for producing, Gazprom Neft—the oil-focused subsidiary of Gazprom—is taking steps toward a larger footprint in the Middle East. The Russian oil company said it wants to open doors in the region by opening up its portfolio of advanced technologies to national oil companies (NOCs) there. To that end, Gazprom Neft chose this year’s SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) held in Dubai to showcase half a dozen proprietary developments, some of which remain in the R&D phase while others are being used companywide. They included an in-house-developed hydraulic fracturing simulator, drilling advisory and automation software, a new material for drill bits, and digital twins for its facilities. Each represents a major investment of time and resources, but the majority state-owned Gazprom Neft said it doesn’t necessarily want cash from those who might use the fruits of its labor; it wants relationships. “We are not a sales company, we are an oil and gas company,” said Roman Sokolov, the manager of international technology scouting and commercialization at Gazprom Neft. Speaking from the company’s booth at the industry conference, he explained that Gazprom Neft is looking to exchange experiences with other operators “rather than commercializing in the traditional sense. “Essentially, we are open to partnerships and that’s why we are here—to show [what] we have in our portfolios and see what people are offering,” he added. Unlike several of the largest US and European oil companies, Gazprom Neft’s Middle East exposure today is relatively modest. It operates a single development, the Sarqala field in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, where production is reported to be about 33,000 B/D. In 2019, however, Gazprom Neft began its quest to enter the growing UAE market by inking a wide-ranging collaboration agreement with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) spanning everything from joint assessments of concession blocks to sharing digital technologies. At ATCE, the Gazprom Neft delegation made clear it wants to build stronger ties with other NOCs too, including Dubai’s Dragon Oil and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Petroleum. Gazprom Neft’s new friendship campaign comes against the backdrop of economic sanctions that the US and members of the European Union imposed on Russia following its military actions against Ukraine in 2014. As a result, Russian energy companies have been forced to rely more on domestic innovation to keep pace with international rivals on things such as the digital revolution and shale production. This is of course a position that is somewhat familiar to the Russian oil and gas story. As many remember, it was Russian engineers working inside the then Soviet Union who are credited with making key advances in horizontal drilling during the Cold War in the 1960s.