By Ron Bousso and Sabrina Valle
(Reuters) – Norwegian energy giant Equinor has stopped trading Russian oil as part of its plan to wind down its operations in Russia in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, Chief Executive Anders Opedal told Reuters on Thursday.
Equinor joins other major oil and gas traders including Shell, BP and France’s TotalEnergies in its decision to halt oil buying from Russia, which supplies around a third of Europe’s oil, according to the International Energy Agency.
“When we said we wanted to start exiting the JV we also stopped from that date trading with Russian oil,” Opedal told Reuters in an interview at the CERAWeek conference in Houston.
Equinor said on Feb. 28 it will exit its joint ventures with Russia’s Rosneft, anticipating a writedown of $1.2 billion.
Benchmark oil prices hit a 14-year high earlier this week as exports from Russia dwindled in response to Western sanctions on Moscow.
Russia exports between 4 and 5 million barrels of crude every day, making it the second-largest world exporter of crude outside Saudi Arabia.
(Reporting by Ron Bousso; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
