A Lukoil petrol station in the United States, 7 March 2022. Photo: EPA / Justin Lane
Multinational commodities trader Gunvor has withdrawn its offer to buy the foreign assets of sanctioned Russian oil giant Lukoil after the US Treasury Department accused it of being a “puppet” for the Kremlin, POLITICO reported on Thursday.
The reversal came just a week after Lukoil announced it had accepted Gunvor’s offer to purchase its foreign assets following the Russian energy giant’s sanctioning by the US amid the Trump administration’s growing frustration at Moscow’s reluctance to negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine.
“President Trump has been clear that the war must end immediately”, a post on X by the Treasury Department read. “As long as Putin continues the senseless killings, the Kremlin’s puppet, Gunvor, will never get a license to operate and profit”.
While Gunvor spokesperson Seth Pietras subsequently told POLITICO that the Treasury Department’s statement had been “fundamentally misinformed and false”, he confirmed that the trader had withdrawn its offer.
The deal would have seen Gunvor take control of most of Lukoil’s operations outside Russia, which include major oil refineries in Bulgaria and Romania, petrol stations across Europe and the US, and oil and gas production in the Middle East, employing a total of around 15,000 people worldwide.
Founded in 2000 by Russian oligarch Gennady Timchenko and Swedish oil trader Torbjörn Törnqvist, Gunvor is the world’s fourth largest crude oil trader. Once a major player in the export of Russian oil, at its height Gunvor handled up to 40% of the country’s seaborne oil exports and was dubbed the king of Kremlin oil by market analysts.
A close ally of Vladimir Putin, Timchenko, who was himself sanctioned by the US government following Russia’s illegal 2014 annexation of Crimea, officially ended his involvement with the company by selling his stake to Törnqvist just prior to being sanctioned.
Gunvor maintains that it stepped back from the bulk of direct business and ties with Russia following its annexation of Crimea, and publicly condemned its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
However, Novaya Europe has found that Törnqvist maintains close personal connections with Russia and continues to make frequent visits to Moscow, where he owns a mansion in an exclusive gated community in the prestigious suburb of Rublyovka.
Pietras told POLITICO that Gunvor had “always been open and transparent about its ownership and business” and that it would welcome the opportunity to correct what he called the Treasury Department’s “clear misunderstanding” of its operations.
