Two sanctioned Russian oligarchs have become part-owners of the UK’s largest oil producer after it completed a deal to buy a German firm.
LetterOne, the investment company part-owned by oligarchs Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, now owns nearly 15% of Harbour Energy.
LetterOne itself is not sanctioned, and the two Russians have no contact with the firm and don’t receive any share of its profits.
Harbour Energy is the largest oil and gas producer in UK waters. It has bought most of the oil and gas production assets of a Germany-based firm, Wintershall DEA, from the chemicals giant BASF.
Well, the profits that should have gone to the oligarchs is hopefully being deposited into the sanctioned money pot. Not that these companies save it up for the oligarchs so they can just have it paid out once the sanctions are lifted.
I hope the sanctions laws include a passage that any future payouts based on earnings while under sanctions is illegal and anyone caught facilitating this will be jailed for no less than the sanctions period.
It also means that there are no gas and oil production firms with an HQ in Germany. The rest of Wintershall DEA holding the Russian assets is mainly used to get insurance money, as Putin stole all those assets. So they might get the money back, but probably not the assets.
That puts Germany in an intressting position. Being the 9th largest oil consumer and 8th largest gas consumer certainly makes Germany dependent on other countries, but that should change. So bigger and better lobbying against climate change from what is now the third largest economy in the world.
