How to Stop Oil Companies From Propping Up Kleptocrats
On 4 March 2022, Foreign Policy published a commentary piece on kleptocracy in the oil sector, a short excerpt of which is below. Read the full commentary.
This week, BP, Equinor, ExxonMobil, and Shell announced they will exit partnerships with state-owned Russian oil and gas companies, citing their opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Shell’s CEO explained, “We cannot—and we will not—stand by.”
However, it was years of standing by that helped create the current situation, in which emboldened kleptocrats collected oil profits via legitimizing partnerships with international companies. For decades, major oil companies have insisted that partnering with corrupt dictators, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, is an unfortunate but unavoidable necessity. The war in Ukraine, with the climate crisis smoldering in the background, requires the industry and its financial backers to abandon this narrative.
Divestments by these Western oil companies contribute to the crisis now facing Russia’s oil and gas sector, one of the largest in the world. Even in the absence of sanctions on energy exports, oil companies as well as commodity traders, insurance providers, banks, and other industry players are backing away from the country. This leaves Russia without buyers for its crude oil and has sent the stock value of Russian oil companies plummeting. In the longer term, divestments could delay key projects, such as the ExxonMobil-operated Sakhalin oil and gas fields, and deprive the industry of the financing and technology it needs to sustain its growth...
Read the full commentary.
Gillies subsequently spoke on a related topic to National Public Radio (U.S.):
Gillies also addressed a related topic in this short documentary by VICE News: This week, BP, Equinor, ExxonMobil, and Shell announced they will exit partnerships with state-owned Russian oil and gas companies, citing their opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Shell’s CEO explained, “We cannot—and we will not—stand by.”
However, it was years of standing by that helped create the current situation, in which emboldened kleptocrats collected oil profits via legitimizing partnerships with international companies. For decades, major oil companies have insisted that partnering with corrupt dictators, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, is an unfortunate but unavoidable necessity. The war in Ukraine, with the climate crisis smoldering in the background, requires the industry and its financial backers to abandon this narrative.
Divestments by these Western oil companies contribute to the crisis now facing Russia’s oil and gas sector, one of the largest in the world. Even in the absence of sanctions on energy exports, oil companies as well as commodity traders, insurance providers, banks, and other industry players are backing away from the country. This leaves Russia without buyers for its crude oil and has sent the stock value of Russian oil companies plummeting. In the longer term, divestments could delay key projects, such as the ExxonMobil-operated Sakhalin oil and gas fields, and deprive the industry of the financing and technology it needs to sustain its growth...
Read the full commentary.
Gillies subsequently spoke on a related topic to National Public Radio (U.S.):
Alexandra Gillies is an advisor at the Natural Resource Governance Institute. She is the author of Crude Intentions: How Oil Corruption Contaminates the World.
Authors
Alexandra Gillies
Contributor