U.S. oil firm Exxon Mobil has been denied special permission from the U.S. government to resume its business operations in Russia, the Bloomberg news agency has reported.
The company recently appealed to the U.S. Treasury Department to let the company bypass current U.S. sanctions, The Wall Street Journal wrote last week.
Exxon has applied for a visa waiver on several occasions, but renewed its efforts after its former chief executive, Rex Tillerson, became secretary of state, an unnamed source told the newspaper.
Exxon would have resumed a joint project with Russia's Rosneft to drill for oil in the Black Sea.
The company was forced to give up the work in 2014, when the White House imposed economic sanctions on Moscow in retaliation to the Kremlin's annexation of Crimea.
