The data was shared amid criticism that the West’s purchases of Russian coal, oil and gas — which are largely state-owned — have helped finance Russia’s war in Ukraine. These payments underscore how much capital Western energy companies that chose to continue operating in Russia after Crimea was annexed transferred to the state.
They came up with a list of nine companies from these regions that had paid the most money. All those payments were legal, and other multinational companies outside the energy sector have also made similar payments to the Russian state.
The three groups that collected the data said that while the $15.8 billion figure was significant, the identified companies were also responsible for tens of billions of dollars more that flowed into the Russian state because of interests they have in Russian oil and gas companies. .
Until recently, BP had a 19.75% interest in the Russian energy company Rosneft. Rosneft paid Russia $353.16 billion in taxes, fees, royalties and oil profits between 2014 and 2021, data from Rystad shows.
While BP may not have paid that money directly to Russia, Murray Worthy, leader of the gas campaign at Global Witness, said it still bore some responsibility for the payments.
“The actual amount these companies have to pay to Russia is much closer to the $100 billion mark, but is obscured by their holdings in Russian companies. interest in the oil and gas giant Rosneft which it says it had until a few weeks ago,” he told DailyExpertNews, referring to payments made in the period between Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the end of 2021.
In a statement, he added: “The Russian energy industry is Putin’s biggest earner and companies like BP that (despite) … continue to support the invasion of Crimea, money flowing into its war coffers, must question whether they now have Ukrainian blood on their hands.”
BP announced it would give up that share just days after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. A number of other fossil fuel companies have since followed suit.
In an email to DailyExpertNews, BP spokesman David Nicholas said the company did not recognize the $78.4 billion figure and explained that the only money BP paid directly to the Russian state was $350 million in taxes for the six years between 2015 and 2020. unable to provide data for the entire eight-year period.
“On February 27, we announced that we will be leaving our stake in Rosneft, that the two BP-nominated directors will resign from the board with immediate effect and that we will be leaving our other companies in Russia with Rosneft,” said Nicholas.
BP now faces a potential $25 billion loss related to its exit.
Worthy said that while BP might deny responsibility for Rosneft’s payments to the Russian state, “it has always been more than happy to benefit from the billions that have flown from his involvement with the company.”
While the dataset focused on payments made primarily through taxes and fees, much more money flows from the West into the Russian state treasury in actually purchased oil and gas — used for everything from gas for heating houses to fuel for cars. The actual amount of money going from oil and gas companies in the West to the Russian state would be much higher than any amount paid in taxes and duties.
“So when Rosneft sells its products for export, those sales transactions are the way it makes most of its money,” said Alexandra Gillies, an advisor to the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), which focuses on countries rich in resources. resources and achieving sustainability .
Gillies said that while Western companies chose to leave Russia was a step in the right direction, it should have come much sooner.
“This invasion of Ukraine was necessary for Western oil companies to say, ‘You know what? We don’t want to allow what this regime is doing anymore.’ They should have made that appeal much earlier with the invasion of Crimea, or with the repressive nature of the Putin regime, or with the Putin regime meddling in the US elections, or the poisoning of opposition figures, including on British soil. ‘ said Gillies.
“There have been so many moments in recent years that should have prompted Western companies to end their partnership with the regime.”
The other four companies listed in the NGO’s statement are France-based TotalEnergies ($568 million); Equinor from Norway ($455 million); Austria-based OMV ($246 million) and Switzerland-based Trafigura ($202 million).
Rystad told DailyExpertNews his data sets were based on estimates derived from limited available tax reporting.
TotalEnergies also has interests in Russian oil and gas companies that have paid hundreds of millions of dollars more to the government, according to data from Rystad.
DailyExpertNews reached out to all of the companies listed, as well as Rosneft, for comment. ExxonMobil did not respond to DailyExpertNews’s request.
Shell CEO Ben van Beurden also apologized in the statement after the company was criticized in early March for buying a shipment of Russian crude oil while other companies and traders shunned the product after the Russian invasion in February.
Equinor has shut down its operations in Russia and says it has stopped trading Russian oil. The spokesperson, Ola Morten Aanestad, did not confirm the $455 million figure in an email to DailyExpertNews, saying it is “too early to be specific about the exit process,” when asked if the company would be permanently out of Russia. would stay.
An OMV spokesperson, at DailyExpertNews’s request, declined to comment on the amount of money it transferred to Russia, pointing to a recent statement in which the company said it was “re-evaluating its involvement with Russia.”
Wintershall DEA told DailyExpertNews that the company “was unable to verify the figures presented to us” and that it “has always conducted our business in accordance with all applicable laws.”
A Trafigura spokesperson said the company has not paid anything to the Russian government “from the production of fossil fuels”. The company has a 10% stake in the Vostok Oil project, of which Rosneft is the majority shareholder. The spokesperson said that “no more money has been paid” since the acquisition of the stake in 2020. “Trafigura has not received any dividends or similar payments from its stake in Vostok Oil.”
Lorne Stockman, Research Co-director at Oil Change International, said the world should now avoid looking to other autocratic regimes to replace the fossil fuels they shun from Russia.
“Fossil fuels are the currency of despots, dictators and warmongers. Our global dependence on oil and gas is not only killing our planet, but also making the world less safe and equal. Major western polluters like BP and Shell are all too happy to work in countries with a despicable record of human rights for more than a century,” Stockman said.
“Now is the time to end the era of fossil fuels.”