Big Oil Walks Away After Decades in Russia
With years of investment unraveling, attention now turns to TotalEnergies and Exxon’s investments in the country.
First BP, then Shell. In just two days, Britain’s twin energy giants have dumped Russian investments nurtured over decades and shut themselves out of the world’s largest energy exporter, probably forever.
Shell Plc’s move to exit a stake in the Sakhalin-2 LNG project, an investment that dates back to the Yeltsin era, follows BP Plc’s announcement on Sunday that it will walk away from a holding in Russia’s state oil producer, Rosneft PJSC. Their decisions put pressure on remaining foreign investors, including Exxon Mobil Corp. and France’s TotalEnergies SE, to follow suit as Russia’s war in Ukraine forces a dramatic rupture with the global economy.