Escape from Moscow. Because the invasion of Ukraine is such an unbearable and destabilizing act of war that staying in the Russian market in the long run would also be detrimental to shareholders. For these reasons, a growing number of multinationals in a few days announced dramatic steps to retreat from Russia: closing multi-contract joint ventures, abandoning new ones, repatriating employees. What is happening is a real mass exodus of major international companies from Moscow, in different sectors: from energy to transport, from automobiles to legal services.
BB is the first to come out
The first surprising announcement came on Sunday from London, the home of British oil giant BP. The largest foreign investor in Russia decided to sell its 20% stake in Rosneft, which is Russia’s state oil company, is a very painful financial move that could lead to a currency devaluation of $25 billion and reduce its global oil and gas production by a third. On the stock market, the stock has already repaid a 7 percent drop.
Shell and Equinor at the wheel
Twenty-four hours later, there was another oil glue like Shell’s role to take Similar decision. The British multinational, citing Russia’s “meaningless military aggressive action”, announced the termination of its partnership with Russia’s state-controlled gas giant Gazprom, including the Sakhalin 2 LNG plant, and its participation in the Nord Stream 2 gas project. The pipeline, which was already stopped by Germany last week. The two projects are worth about $3 billion.
From the UK to Norway, the situation has not changed. Equinor, Norway’s largest state-controlled energy company, has announced that it will begin withdrawing from its joint ventures in Russia, which are valued at about $1.2 billion. “In the current situation, we consider our position to be unsustainable,” said CEO Anders Obedal.
Eni will sell its stake in the Blue Stream gas pipeline
Eni is also withdrawing from a partnership in Russia. A spokesman for the group said: “With regard to joint and equal participation with Gazprom in the Blue Stream gas pipeline (connecting Russia with Turkey), Eni intends to proceed with the sale of its stake,” explaining that “the current Eni presence in Russia is marginal. Existing joint ventures With Rosneft, associated with exploration licenses in the Arctic, already frozen for years, also due to international sanctions imposed from 2014 ».
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