Russia: Shell to halt buying Russian oil & gas & close all service stations in country; incl. co comment
Firm apologises for crude oil purchase last week as it moves to end all Russian dealings.
Shell has announced plans to withdraw from Russian oil and gas and close all its service stations in the country, as the boss of the FTSE 100 company apologised for buying Russian crude oil last week.
The company will immediately stop buying Russian crude oil on the spot market and not renew term contracts. It will also change its crude oil supply chain to remove Russian supplies, but said this could take weeks to complete and would lead to reduced throughput at some of its refineries.
Shell will also shut its service stations, aviation fuels and lubricants operations in Russia, and start a phased withdrawal from Russian petroleum products, pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas. “This is a complex challenge,” it said in a statement on Tuesday. “Changing this part of the energy system will require concerted action by governments, energy suppliers and customers, and a transition to other energy supplies will take much longer.”
Chief executive, Ben van Beurden, said: “We are acutely aware that our decision last week to purchase a cargo of Russian crude oil to be refined into products like petrol and diesel – despite being made with security of supplies at the forefront of our thinking – was not the right one and we are sorry.
“As we have already said, we will commit profits from the limited, remaining amounts of Russian oil we will process to a dedicated fund. We will work with aid partners and humanitarian agencies over the coming days and weeks to determine where the monies from this fund are best placed to alleviate the terrible consequences that this war is having on the people of Ukraine.”
A week ago, Shell exited its joint ventures with the Russian state energy firm Gazprom.