Western Companies Suffer $70 Billion Losses After Exiting Russian Market
US Dollar
Evgeny MikhaylovSanctions imposed on Russia by the US, Britain and the EU resulted in a fresh wave of inflation, hitting western countries and skyrocketing energy prices around the world.Sputnik analyzed the losses of the European, US and Japanese companies that expressed intentions to leave or suspend their operations in Russia after the start of special op in Ukraine in February, discovering that their withdrawal and frozen activities cost the businesses at least $70 billion.The energy sector was most affected by this move, reporting total losses of $54.9 billion. At the same time, food and tobacco companies lost $7.7 billion, IT firms and machine producers around $4.9 billion, and the banking sector $3.7 billion.European energy corporations, such as BP, Linde, Uniper, and TotalEnergies each lost a fortune, impairing their billion-dollar assets amid the suspension of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and departure from other projects.BP, which announced an unconditional withdraw from the Russian market in February, remains one of the biggest partners of the Rosneft fuel corporation, owning 19.75% of its shares. Nevertheless, BP wrote off at least $25.5 billion in losses.© AP Photo / Charles DharapakFILE – In this Oct. 25, 2007 file photo, the BP (British Petroleum) logo is seen at a gas station in Washington. BP will spend $7 billion to buy exploration rights to areas in the Gulf of Mexico, offshore Brazil and Canada owned by Devon Energy
FILE – In this Oct. 25, 2007 file photo, the BP (British Petroleum) logo is seen at a gas station in Washington. BP will spend $7 billion to buy exploration rights to areas in the Gulf of Mexico, offshore Brazil and Canada owned by Devon EnergyUS-based ExxonMobil, as well as Japanese companies Mitsui & Co and Mitsubishi Corporation, also reported losses in the Sakhalin-I and Sakhalin-II projects.Among other companies which suffered the most since the beginning of the op are McDonald’s, which lost $1.2 billion, PepsiCo Inc with $1.6 billion losses, and Carlsberg with $1.18 billion.The only banking group that has left Russia so far – Societe Generale – estimated its losses at $3 billion.Russian parliamentary speaker Vyacheslav Volodin noted that the nations that apply sanctions against Moscow only hurt themselves.
"By lowering the iron curtain around their countries, because of their own stupidity and ignorance, they punish themselves,” he said.
Volodin lambasted the countries that called for an EU entry ban on Russian citizens, stressing that the current restrictions applied against Russians will result in Europe losing at least 21 billion euros. The speaker noted that the nations which urged for such a move ̶ including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, the Czech Republic, Poland and Ukraine ̶ “have lost their independence”.
