http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/18/us-exxon-rosneft-idUSBRE83H0UE20120418

Exxon, Rosneft unveil $500 billion offshore venture.

Rosneft is the Russian State-owned oil company. Putin arrested the owner, threw him in jail and just took over.

Arctic Ocean and Black Sea exploration.

“Experts say that this project, in terms of its ambitions, exceeds sending man into outer space or flying to the moon,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, a key architect of the partnership, told a briefing for analysts in New York.

It think the day of the nation-state has finally ended. We now live in on a planet controlled and ruled by giant corporations. “Statism” is rapidly becoming obsolete. These mega firms aren’t interested in taking away our freedoms. They don’t even know we’re here. I have a feeling Rosneft, like Exxon, will survive Putin’s demise, or any change in government, either in the US or Russia. Really big companies are immortal, and they are also apolitical. They don’t care about ideology. They exist in a universe consisting only of money. It is the final, most advanced, ultimate stage of capitalism.

Five hundred billion dollars. Five hundred billion dollars. And just in time for an ice-free summer arctic.