THE SHELL LEAKS FILES — 30 OCTOBER 2026
SLF-2007-103
The Sakhalin Papers XCIII: The Discounted Cargo — Shell’s Russian Oil Purchase, Ukraine’s Protest and the Apology That Followed
By John Donovan — 30 October 2026
On 28 February 2022, Shell announced that it would withdraw from its major Russian joint ventures following the invasion of Ukraine. Four days later, the company purchased a cargo of Russian crude oil at a record discount of $28.50 per barrel below the Brent benchmark. Ukraine’s foreign minister publicly challenged the transaction. Shell initially defended its decision, promising to direct profits towards humanitarian relief. On 8 March, chief executive Ben van Beurden apologised and announced a much wider withdrawal from Russian oil and gas. The surviving Shell statements, Reuters reports and contemporaneous records reveal how the controversy unfolded — and why the distinction between legal compliance and corporate responsibility became impossible to ignore.
By John Donovan — 29 October 2026
By John Donovan — 29 October 2026
Shell has not stopped believing in the energy transition. It simply believes the transition should happen somewhere else, to someone else, and ideally on someone else’s balance sheet.
The oil giants have apparently escaped a $12 billion claim because Kazakhstan was too late bringing it. But the wider Kashagan dispute is far from settled, and the embarrassing questions about cost overruns, alleged corruption, environmental damage and corporate accountability are not going away.
