The Gazprom logo
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)Shell must follow BP and dump Gazprom.
On the face of it, the decision looks obvious. Investors and companies are ditching links to Russia at a rate of knots as any exposure to the country fast becomes toxic. The Gazprom deal, struck in 2015, looks like a growing liability.
Ben van Beurden can mount a better defence of the arrangement than BP could with Rosneft. With Rosneft, there was a direct link from the oil fields to the tanks on the front lines: diesel fuel. That’s not so for natural gas giant Gazprom.
Shell might also argue that the joint ventures are good for the green agenda. A five-year co-operation agreement struck last year said the pair would focus on how natural gas could play its part in the “reduction of greenhouse gas emissions”.
Ultimately, these arguments are naïve. Gazprom is majority-owned by the Russian state and any enterprise working to support the company ultimately helps to enrich the Kremlin’s coffers. That’s unacceptable as missiles rain down on Kyiv.
Shell can’t say it wasn’t warned. Gazprom boss Alexey Miller was sanctioned by the US as far back as 2018 in response to the occupation of Crimea and Russia’s efforts to “instigate violence in eastern Ukraine,” as then US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin put it.
Severing the link seems a matter of when not if for Shell. But the uncomfortable bigger truth for Europe is we remain reliant on Russian oil and gas. The taps keep flowing even as the deals dry up.
