In a modification of previous rules, foreign companies are to be permitted to participate in auctions on strategic Russian natural resource fields, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources. Poland is pushing for talks with Germany and Russia about a controversial Baltic Sea gas pipeline project controlled by Gazprom. “We need to understand why the Russians are holding out for this project under the Baltic, which is three times more expensive than a gas pipeline crossing Poland”. VRJ Petroleum, which includes Russia’s OAO Zarubezhneft, Vietnam Oil & Gas Group, and a unit of Japan’s Idemitsu Kosan, has made a commercial oil discovery off the Vietnamese coast and plans to begin production as soon as 2009.