The Sakhalin project is expected to produce more than 200,000 barrels of oil and gas a day once it is running.

The Sakhalin project needs raw materials and, with a boom in China, prices for those commodities have risen sharply.

But Shell warned Russia last week that it would not proceed with an $8.5 billion phase of its Sakhalin project unless the country made tax laws more stable.

Shell had considered a swap for another Siberian gas field as payment for a 25 percent share of the Sakhalin 2 project.

But the Sakhalin project may not face the transport problems that have stalled other projects, because the oil and gas can be shipped by sea.

Analysts hope the Sakhalin projects will help increase Russia's output and bring much needed oil and gas supplies to energy-hungry world markets in coming decades.

Shell and two Japanese partners were accused of violating Russian environmental law at their Sakhalin 2 project.

Japanese companies own 30 percent of the Sakhalin 1 project and Japanese officials long assumed that the gas would eventually make its way here.

In November 1952 the committee participated in the development of the Tatar Strait tunnel in Sakhalin project.

Instead, it negotiated for about a decade to lead the Sakhalin I offshore project in the Russian Far East.