Gas and oil companies have decided that while they were mostly fine getting into bed with an authoritarian who regularly threatened and violated the autonomy of neighboring countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was the last straw. Over the weekend, BP and Shell announced they would be cutting ties with Russian energy companies — though not before the industry tried to save itself some pain by pushing for softer sanctions on the invading country.
On Sunday, BP announced that it would be abandoning its significant stake in Rosneft, one of Russia’s state-owned oil and gas companies. BP owns about 20% of the company, which is responsible for nearly half of BP’s total oil and gas production and makes up about one-third of all of its assets, according to Reuters. That’s a big deal, and it’ll cost BP about $25 billion just to get out of the arrangement, which it entered into back in 2013 — though it’s not even clear how the company will accomplish its divestment given Russia has banned foreign investors from selling assets and there are probably not a whole lot of people interested in buying up significant stock in the country’s businesses at the moment.
