The US and Russia are looking at joint energy projects in the Arctic, as part of the ceasefire negotiation in Riyadh, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund boss Kirill Dmitriev told Politico on February 19.

Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, who participated in the discussions, revealed that the talks were general but covered "specific areas of cooperation" and several members of the US team have admitted that energy was included in the discussion topics.

"It was more a general discussion – maybe joint projects in the Arctic. We specifically discussed the Arctic," Dmitriev said.

Trump seeks to expand American influence in the Arctic and has considered purchasing Greenland from Denmark, or even taking it by force, because of its strategic location as well as its large deposits of underdeveloped natural resources.

Previously, ExxonMobil collaborated with Russia's state company Rosneft on Arctic hydrocarbon exploration but exited the project in 2018 due to sanctions. Most of Russia’s gas was exported to Europe from the Arctic regions of the Yamal peninsula, the youngest of Russia’s vast gas fields.

The US educated Dmitriev is Russia’s deal-maker-in-chief and worked on several US-funded projects to develop Russia’s capital markets in the 1990s before taking over the sovereign wealth fund in 2011. He has extensive connections amongst leading US funds as well as good relations with sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East.

Notably one of the less high-profile members of the five-man Russian delegation to the Riyadh talks is Vladimir Proskuryakov who works in the Russian Embassy in Canada and specializes in Arctic affairs. The delegation is led by veteran diplomats Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Putin’s foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov, so the presence of a low-profile Arctic specialist on the small team is surprising.

However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who led the US delegation in the talks, hinted that business was high on the agenda and said that ending the conflict could “unlock a historic US-Russia economic alliance”.

Trump has voted to make the US rich again by unlocking its “black goal” and campaigned under the slogan of “drill, baby, drill” as he intends to massively expand America’s oil production. Amongst his first acts as president was to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and so end the US commitment to reduce the use and production of fossil fuels.

With the Western Siberian oil fields in decline, the main source of production for most of the Soviet-era and the Eastern Siberian fields underdeveloped and lacking transport infrastructure, the attention has shifter the vast deposits in the Arctic regions and the Yamal peninsula, which current account for the bulk of Russia’s proven reserves.