Shell says it will stop buying Russian oil and natural gas, and that it will shut down its service stations and other operations in the country.
FILE - The Shell logo is displayed outside one of its petrol stations on May 27, 2021, in Leeds, England.
The decision comes as surging oil prices have been rattling global markets and just days after Ukraine’s foreign minister criticized Shell for continuing to buy Russian oil, lashing out at the company for continuing to do business with President Vladimir Putin’s government. "We are acutely aware that our decision last week to purchase a cargo of Russian crude oil to be refined into products like petrol and diesel — despite being made with security of supplies at the forefront of our thinking — was not the right one and we are sorry," CEO Ben van Beurden said. "As we have already said, we will commit profits from the limited, remaining amounts of Russian oil we will process to a dedicated fund.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he had been told Shell "discretely" bought the oil Friday and appealed to the public to pressure the company and other international firms to halt such purchases.The average price for a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. hit a new record high of $4.104 on Monday, surpassing the previous record of $4.103 set in 2008 according to data from GasBuddy.
"One question to Shell: doesn’t Russian oil smell Ukrainian blood for you?" Kuleba said on Twitter. "I call on all conscious people around the globe to demand multinational companies to cut all business ties with Russia."Last week, Shell said it was "shocked by the loss of life in Ukraine" and would end its joint ventures with Gazprom, the massive oil and gas company controlled by the Russian government.