Western oil and gas giants report tens of billions in losses after leaving Russian market

Foreign oil and gas concerns lost tens of billions of dollars in 2022 after they refused to participate in projects in Russia. It goes about a total of 58 billion dollars.

UK's BP plc, one of the largest shareholders of Russia's oil giant Rosneft, reported a loss of $25.52 billion after investment write off in the Russian company and its joint ventures, Interfax said.

However, BP still owns Russian assets claiming that the company is still looking for buyers. At the same time, sanctions against the Russian Federation, as well as a number of legal regulations in Russia make the process to exit Russian assets complicated.

French company TotalEnergies ($14.8 billion) comes next on the write-off list. The French giant had investments in gas production projects in the Russian Arctic zone. It was also part of liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects.

Germany's Wintershall Dea AG (4.5 billion euros) comes third. The German concern participated in projects to develop several gas fields. Wintershall Dea was also part of Russian gas transportation projects. The losses of the concern amounted to about seven billion euros.

Austrian company OMV wrote off assets worth 2.5 billion euros. The company participated in the implementation of Nord Stream 2 projects, as well as in the development of gas fields.

UK's Shell reported a total net loss of $4.186 billion from the write-off of Russian assets, while Norway's Equinor recorded a net loss from the write-off of Russian assets in the amount of $1.08 billion.

Needless to say that the above-mentioned losses are not going to be fatal for international oil and gas giants with turnovers worth hundreds of billions of dollars. However, writing off billions of dollars and euros is by no means a fact that those companies can be proud of.