The groups, Global Witness, Greenpeace USA and Oil Change International, used data from the Oslo-based Rystad Energy, an independent energy research firm, to calculate how much money oil and gas companies based in North America and Europe had sent to the Russian state. They looked only at companies with exploration and production operations in Russia.
Shell, which is registered in the UK, sent $7.85 billion, the highest amount of the companies listed, the groups said in a statement, shared first with CNN. It was followed by US-based ExxonMobil . Two companies registered in Germany, Wintershall and Wintershall DEA, which have since merged, paid a combined total of $2.86 billion. BP, the British multinational oil and gas company, paid $817 million, the data from Rystad shows.
"The true amount that these companies are responsible for paying to Russia is much closer to the $100 billion mark, but it is obscured by their stakes in Russian companies. We believe that BP alone are responsible for $78.4 billion going to the Russian government through the stake in the oil and gas giant Rosneft it says it held until just a few weeks ago," he told CNN. He was referring to payments during the period between Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the end of 2021.
"On February 27 we announced that we will exit our shareholding in Rosneft, that the two BP-nominated directors are resigning from its board with immediate effect and that we will exit our other businesses in Russia with Rosneft," Nicholas said.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 flowed from its involvement in the company.
Gillies said that while Western companies choosing to exit Russia was a step in the right direction, it should have come much sooner. Rystad told CNN that its datasets were based on estimates derived from limited reporting available on taxes. On March 8, Shell published a press release in which the company announced it would withdraw its involvement in all Russian fossil fuel activities"in a phased manner" and stop purchasing Russian crude oil.