Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to clinch a concrete energy deal on a rare trip to Azerbaijan on Tuesday, dashing Moscow's hopes to challenge the dominance of Western energy majors in the former Soviet republic, Reuters reported. Putin's trips abroad usually yield a flurry of deals and one of his closest allies, state oil champion Rosneft's head Igor Sechin, went to Baku last month to prepare the ground. Russia has long tried to increase its presence in Azerbaijan, a country Europe is hoping will help it lessen its dependence on Russian gas after Moscow's "gas wars" with Ukraine disrupted deliveries in 2006 and 2009. But on Tuesday, Sechin signed only a vague cooperation agreement with Azeri state energy firm Socar as Putin landed in Baku for the first time in seven years. Sources on both sides said a lot of differences needed to be removed for the companies to agree on teaming up on field development or swapping energy supplies. Western oil majors such as BP, Statoil and Exxon Mobil have dominated the Azeri oil industry since the collapse of the Soviet Union while relations between Moscow and Baku have been mostly cool. -- SPA 21:26 LOCAL TIME 18:26 GMT تغريد
