Price of Oil: How US and EU
Oil Firms Fed Putin’s War Chest
Matt Maiorana / Oil Change International
(March 25, 2022) — This morning we released new research showing that western fossil fuel companies have funneled almost $100 billion USD into Putin’s war chest since Russia invaded Crimea in 2014.
It’s now been a full month since Russia began its unjustified and brutal invasion of Ukraine. 10 million people have been forced to leave their homes and almost 4 million have fled the country.
Eight years ago, Russia invaded Crimea. Rather than pulling out all investments, most western fossil fuel companies continued business as usual. Since then, BP, Shell, Wintershall Dea, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, Equinor, OMV, and Trafigura have contributed $95.4 billion USD to Putin’s war chest in royalties, taxes, and fees.
Our briefing is a top story on CNN right now and we need your help to spread the word on Twitter about the new research. While some of these companies are finally pulling out of Russia, they also need to be held responsible for continuing to fund Putin’s war chest even after the invasion of Crimea in 2014.
These oil majors have long worked to increase their access to Russia’s vast hydrocarbon reserves, and in many cases brought the technological and operational expertise needed to realize projects.
While the Russian government has benefited from majority state-owned or state-controlled oil companies such as Gazprom and Rosneft, European and US-based corporations have also spearheaded large oil and gas projects that filled Putin’s coffers.
Click here to read the whole report.
The fact that Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine was able to send global oil and gas markets spiraling is yet another reason to speed up the transition to clean energy sources like wind and solar.
We cannot trust the oil and gas industry — responsible not only for the climate crisis, but also conflict, displacement, and human suffering around the world — to be part of the solution to climate change. Rather than aid the transition to cleaner and more stable energy, US and European oil majors have spent the past decade financing Putin’s regime.
Oil majors should not be celebrated for finally succumbing to political and financial pressure to sell and abandon assets financing an autocratic, expansionist regime. They held those assets and made tens of billions of dollars doing so from Putin’s first annexation of Crimea and Donbas right up until Russia finally launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Unfortunately, there’s even more to the fossil fuel industry’s reprehensible behavior when it comes to the current crisis – next week we’re releasing another briefing focused on how much fossil fuel companies have profited since the invasion began. We’ll share more soon.
Matt Maiorana is the Communications Director for Oil Change International
European and US Energy Companies
Have Poured Nearly $100 Billion Into Putin’s
War Chest Since the Crimea Invasion
Oil Change International, Global Witness, and Greenpeace USA
Revenues from oil and gas projects backed by European and US companies have fueled Vladimir Putin’s regime to the tune of nearly USD 100 billion since 2014.
While the Russian government has benefited from majority state-owned or state-controlled oil companies such as Gazprom and Rosneft, European and US-based corporations have also spearheaded large oil and gas projects that filled Putin’s coffers.
These oil majors have long sought access to Russia’s vast hydrocarbon reserves, and in many cases brought the technological and operational expertise needed to realize projects.
In total, these eight companies — BP, Shell, Wintershall Dea, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, Equinor, OMV, and Trafigura — are responsible for over USD 95 billion to the Russian government via their stakes in Russian oil and gas projects and companies since 2014, with BP responsible for 80% of this total.
