PREFACE/ISSUE
The Nordstream affair was a job of a government.
It would make sense to push company to exit early from Russian energy.
28 Feb 2022 - BP and Shell Are Leaving Russia. These Other Oil Companies Could Face Pressure Next...
BP (UK)
BP's global headquarters is located in London, United Kingdom. The company has a significant presence in many countries around the world and operates in over 70 countries.BP was the biggest foreign investor in the Russian oil and gas industry, with a significant stake in the state-owned oil company Rosneft. However, BP decided to abandon its stake in Rosneft, which resulted in a cost of up to $25 billion. As a consequence of this move, BP's oil and gas reserves were reduced by half. Shell also decided to follow BP's lead and divest its exposure in the Russian oil and gas industry.
27 Feb 2022 - BP to Exit Rosneft Stake and May Take a $25 Billion Hit
27 Feb 2022 - BP to Exit From Stake in Russia’s Rosneft Following Pressure From U.K.
28 Feb 2022 - Shell to divest from Gazprom, Nord Stream 2
28 Feb 2022 - Shell exits Nord Stream 2, In addition, the company will also withdraw from the Sakhalin-2 project
28 Feb 2022 - Shell’s exit from Gazprom intensifies pressure on Total and Exxon
3 May 2022 - BP posts $20B quarterly net loss on Russia exit
SHELL (DUT, UK, int.)
Shell's global headquarters is located in The Hague, Netherlands. The company also has a registered office in London, United Kingdom. Shell is a multinational oil and gas company with operations in over 70 countries, and it has regional headquarters located in different parts of the world, such as Houston (North America), Singapore (Asia Pacific), and Dubai (Middle East and North Africa).
Some of the largest institutional shareholders of Shell include The Vanguard Group, Inc., BlackRock, Inc., Norges Bank Investment Management, and State Street Global Advisors.
The company owns a 27.5% stake in the Sakhalin-2 liquefied natural gas project, has interests in the Salym Petroleum oil project with Gazprom Neft, and a venture for hydrocarbon development at Gydan Arctic peninsula. Additionally, Shell was one of the five co-financiers of the Nord Stream 2 project.
Despite having a significant presence in the Russian oil and gas industry, Shell decided to leave its Russian partnerships.
CHEVRON (USA)
25 Feb 2022 - Chevron says monitoring Russia situation, can adjust crude supply
3 March 2022 - While other oil majors pull out of Russia, Chevron says Caspian pipeline is ‘key’
EXXONMOBIL (USA)
17 Oct 2022 - Exclusive: Exxon exits Russia empty-handed with oil project 'unilaterally terminated'
Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) said on Monday that it left Russia completely after President Vladimir Putin expropriated its properties following seven months of discussions over an orderly transfer of its 30% stake in a major oil project.
HALLIBURTON (USA)
9 Sept 2022 - Halliburton Completes Russia Exit Over Ukraine War
“The Russia-based management team now owns and operates Halliburton’s former business and assets in Russia under the name BurService LLC, which is independent from Halliburton,” the multinational said in a statement.
Halliburton did not disclose the terms of the sale. Its Russian assets were valued at $340 million prior to the exit.
EQUINOR (NOR)
25 May 2022 - Equinor exits all Joint Ventures in Russia
Since then, Equinor has halted all new investments into Russia, stopped trading oil and gas products from Russia and announced an impairment of USD 1.08 billion on the balance sheet as of 31 March 2022.
Equinor has now transferred its participating interests in four Russian joint ventures to Rosneft and is released from all future commitments and obligations. An agreement to exit the Kharyaga project has also been signed.
The exit from all Joint Ventures has been completed in accordance with Norwegian and EU sanctions legislation related to Russia.
UNIPER (GER)
17 Feb 2023 - Uniper Says It Will Overcome Russian Gas Issues By 2024
BASF (GER)
BASF, a German chemicals maker, has exposure to the Russian oil and gas industry through its co-ownership of Wintershall Dea, a company that is one of the financial backers of the suspended Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Wintershall Dea is co-owned by BASF and the Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman's LetterOne investor group. Additionally, BASF generates 1% of its group sales from Russia. In Russia, Wintershall Dea owns a 35% stake in the Yuzhno-Russkoye gas field, with partners Gazprom and Austria’s OMV.Wintershall Dea also jointly works with Gazprom at the Achimov Development gas-producing project in Russia.
18 Jan 2022 - Germany’s BASF takes huge write-downs as unit exits Russia
16 June - BASF subsidiary profits from Germany’s Russian gas addiction
Despite the war in Ukraine, in 2022 the chemical giant’s subsidiary Wintershall has piped €14 billion worth of Russian gas across Germany and made €400 million from its Siberian gas and oil fields.
12 Oct 2022 - BASF to slash costs in Europe, takes writedown on Nord Stream 1
“Continuing to operate in Russia is not tenable,” Wintershall Dea CEO Mario Mehren said.
He added that limitations imposed by Russia on Western-owned assets had made it impossible to operate properly “and resulted in an economic expropriation of the joint ventures in Russia”.
The company specified that Russian presidential decrees had retroactively slashed the prices at which joint ventures can sell their oil and gas to Kremlin-controlled Gazprom.
25 Oct 2022 - The biggest corporate victim of Europe’s energy crisis may be a $93 billion chemical giant whose flagship plant uses as much gas as Switzerland
OMV (AUT)
18 Jan 2023 - OMV: not yet made final decision on asset in Russia
Austria's OMV (OMVV.VI) has not yet made a final decision on its asset in Russia, the company said on Wednesday, following BASF's (BASFn.DE) announcement that its subsidiary Wintershall Dea (WINT.UL) would exit the country.
ENI (ITA)
2 March 2022 - Italy's Eni to pull out of Russia-Turkey natural gas pipeline
Italian oil giant Eni said Tuesday it would withdraw from the Blue Stream gas pipeline linking Russia to Turkey, in which it has a 50% stake.
ENGIE (FRA)
3 March 2022 - France's Engie to continue Russian gas purchases on energy market 'tensions'
Engie said it did not engage in any industrial activity in Russia and no investment projects were underway on Russian territory.
However, Engie was one of five European energy companies that helped finance the construction of the suspended Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.
"Engie, as a lender, is exposed to Eur987million of credit risk which could impact its accounts in the event of Nord Stream 2 filing for insolvency," it said.
The Switzerland-based operator of Nord Stream 2 on March 2 denied reports it had filed for bankruptcy, saying it had only informed local authorities that it had terminated employee contracts.
Numerous media reports, citing sources and Swiss officials, on March 1 said Nord Stream 2 AG had filed for insolvency or was planning to after US sanctions were imposed against the company on Feb. 23.
Engie, along with Shell, Austria's OMV, and Germany's Wintershall Dea and Uniper, each pledged to loan Eur950 million to help build Nord Stream 2.
TOTALENERGIES (FRA)
9 Dec 2022 - TotalEnergies to ‘gradually withdraw’ from Russian investments
World’s fifth-largest oil firm finally bows to pressure after invasion of Ukraine, removing representatives from Novatek board.
1 Sept 2022 - The CEO of @TotalEnergies, @PPouyanne, explains the reality
...of the consequences of the sanctions against #Russie: the loss of billions of euros of investments given as gifts to the Kremlin, if ever #Total withdraws, as the entails a disconnected media-political caste.
Because, if we leave Russia, we give all the assets and infrastructures to Russia, and Russia know how to use it... so it will be a gift for the Kremlin. [credit to LuxFree @LuxFree3 for pointing this out]
II. The divesting from Russia did not go as planned
3 Jan 2023 - BP Still In Spotlight Over Incomplete Russia Exit
Sonnenfeld has told Bloomberg that he noticed an unusual pattern as U.S. businesses started withdrawing from Russia: the first movers actually were oil giants with complex local ties and huge sunk costs; and tech companies wary of the political complications and professional firms that hate to offend their clients rather than consumer brands sensitive to public sentiment.
31 Jan 2023 - Nearly a year on from the supposed Russian exodus, most major companies have yet to withdraw
After Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022, companies across the G-7 major economies and the European Union announced plans to cease business operations in Russia.
Yet by the end of the year, very few had fully delivered on that promise, according to new research from Switzerland’s University of St. Gallen
The report published earlier this month documented a total of 2,405 subsidiaries owned by 1,404 EU and G-7 companies that were active in Russia at the time of the first military incursion into Ukraine.
By November 2022, fewer than 9% of that pool of companies had divested at least one subsidiary in Russia
“Confirmed exits by EU and G7 firms that had equity stakes in Russia account for 6.5% of total profit before tax of all the EU and G7 firms with active commercial operations in Russia, 8.6% of tangible fixed assets, 8.6% of total assets, 10.4% of operating revenue, and 15.3% of total employees,”
“These findings mean that, on average, exiting firms tended to have lower profitability and larger workforces than the firms that remain in Russia.”
“These findings call into question the willingness of Western firms to decouple from economies their governments now deem to be geopolitical rivals,” Evenett and Pisani wrote.“The study’s findings are a reality check on the narrative that national security concerns and geopolitics is leading to a fundamental unwinding of globalisation.”
[M: I have been repeating over and over that business/trade always wins over politics in medium to long term. Example, see Vietnam - USA relations.]
2 March 2022 - US urges companies to comply with Russia-related sanctions
13 March 2022 - UK's Sunak urges firms to leave Russia
British finance minister Rishi Sunak called on more British companies on Sunday to wind down their existing investments in Russia and said new investments should be halted after President Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine.
CONCLUSION/SUMMARY:
- It looks like the UK, US based oil/gas majors companies started the exit from Russia.
- The UK was very active in pursuing companies to leave RU market.
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