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Statement on media reports regarding bp’s exit from Russia

Release date:
2 December 2022

bp  is exiting Russia,  we have no intention of “returning to business as usual”. Just three days after Russia’s attack on Ukraine, bp announced that we will exit our shareholding in Rosneft and other businesses in Russia – we said the attack was “a fundamental change.” This is still our position.

 

As a result of our decisions we had to take a charge of over $24 billion in our accounts – the largest such financial impact on any company. And we no longer report any equity share of earnings, production or reserves from Rosneft – reducing our reported earnings by c $2 billion a year, oil and gas production by a third (1.1 million barrels equivalent a day) and oil and gas reserves by just over a half (>9 billion barrels equivalent).

 

Since our decision, bp has not received any dividends from the Rosneft shares. It is our understanding that, under Russian regulations, any payments to a company in an “unfriendly state” such as the UK would go into a highly restricted Russian bank account from which money could not be transferred without Russian government approval. This is described in detail in our most recent results - see p21 of bp’s 3Q results.

 

Additional notes:

  • bp’s two nominated directors immediately stood down from Rosneft’s board, and international staff were withdrawn from Russia.
  • We took $24.4 billion charge to accounts in the first quarter, and removed Rosneft earnings, production and reserves from our reporting.
  • We continue to pursue options to complete our exit from Russia which is complex, due to both international sanctions and Russian government restrictions.

Further information

 

Contacts

 

bp press office, London: +44 20 7496 4076, bppress@bp.com