A court document presented on Friday has revealed that the prosecutor general of Russia had filed a lawsuit against eight of energy giant Shell’s units.  

The lawsuit was filed with Moscow’s arbitration court on Wednesday, and today’s papers highlighted that proceedings have now been launched by state-owned gas company Gazprom, the Russian Energy Ministry, regulation authorities of the Pacific Island of Sakhalin, Sakhalin and the office of prosecutor general.  

Shell had several projects in Moscow before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including a stake in a liquified natural gas (LNG) production plant on the island of Sakhalin operated by Gazprom.  

The invasion of Ukraine created a volatile energy market in Europe, leading to many stakeholders withdrawing their business with Russia.  

Despite this, Russia remains active in the global energy market, producing large amounts of oil and gas while being part of OPEC+, and increasing its trade with Asian countries such as India and China.  

Russia’s has also developed a ‘shadow fleet’ of oil and natural gas tankers, helping its efforts to evade EU sanctions on maritime oil trade.   

According to David O’Sullivan, the EU’s Special Representative for Sanctions, who spoke at a roundtable at the Centre for European Policy in Brussels in September, the continuing operation of a shadow fleet is a major contributing factor aiding Russia’s continuing transportation and sale of hydrocarbons.   

According to several media reports last month, the senior official indicated that the EU was contemplating expanding its sanctions regime against Russia to encompass the foreign subsidiaries of European companies.   

Russia consolidated its control over the facility on island of Sakhalin in response to sanctions by western nations, at the same time Shell withdrew operations in Russia.  

This saw Shell suddenly end its investment in all projects based in Russia. This included the LNG facility in Sakhalin and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project.