Energy giant Shell said on Tuesday it would stop buying Russian oil and natural gas and close its service stations, aviation fuels and other operations in the country amid international pressure for companies to break ties with the invasion of Russia. Ukraine.
The company said in a statement that it will withdraw all Russian hydrocarbons, including crude oil, petroleum products, natural gas and liquefied natural gas, “gradually.”
The decision comes as rising oil prices has been the world markets that tread and just days after Ukraine’s foreign minister criticized Shell for continuing to buy Russian oil, lashing out at the company for continuing to do business with President Vladimir Putin’s government.
“We are well aware that our decision last week to acquire a load of Russian crude oil to be refined into products such as gasoline and diesel, even though it has been made with security of supply at the forefront of our thinking, it wasn’t right and we’re sorry, “said CEO Ben van Beurden. “As we have said, we will commit the benefits of the limited and remaining amounts of Russian oil that we will process to a dedicated fund.”
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said he had been told that Shell had “discreetly” bought the oil on Friday and called on the public to pressure the company and other international companies to suspend such purchases.
“A question to Shell: Does Russian oil not smell like Ukrainian blood to you?” Kuleba said on Twitter. “It calls on all conscious people around the world to demand that multinational companies sever all trade ties with Russia.”
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Last week, Shell said it was “shocked by the loss of life in Ukraine” and that it would end its joint ventures with Gazprom, the large Russian-controlled oil and gas company.
Oleg Ustenko, economic adviser to the President of Ukraine, last weekend wrote an opinion piece asking the world to cut what he denounced as Russia’s “blood oil”, which supplies about $ 1 billion per day in Moscow and which, he said, is being funded. the war in Ukraine. “Don’t buy anything from Russia,” he wrote.
ExxonMobil said last week that it would close its operations in Russia, joining energy giants BP and Equinor of Russia, the world’s third-largest oil producer. Specifically, Exxon plans to exit the Sakhalin-1 project, an oil and gas operation on the island of Sakhalin in the Russian Far East that the company operates on behalf of an international consortium. The company is also lowering new investments in Russia, the company said.
Shell’s decision to stop buying Russian energy comes as the White House and Congress consider it banning U.S. imports of Russian oil. The US is much less dependent on Russian oil than Europe. Last year, about 8 percent of U.S. oil imports came from Russia, while in January almost no Russian oil entered the U.S., said Troy Vincent, a senior market analyst at DTN, a raw material research.
A Quinnipiac poll released Monday found an overwhelming majority of Americans in favor of banning Russian oil, even if it means rising gas prices.
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