Russia’s second-largest company, state-run oil giant Rosneft, complained over the weekend about EU sanctions on an Indian refinery it partly owns.
A Rosneft spokesperson called the sanctions introduced by Brussels on Friday “illegal,” arguing that the Russian company, despite its 49-percent stake in the Nayara Energy facility, does not directly receive any dividends of the company’s profits, but rather reinvests them.
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“The EU sanctions against the Indian refinery in which Rosneft holds a stake are illegal and do not comply with international law,” a company spokesperson said.
The Vadinar, Gujarat-based plant has a processing capacity of about 400,000 barrels of oil per day and runs nearly 7,000 gas stations across India.
The Russian company also has plans to build a petrochemical plant next to the refinery. These kinds of plants typically produce petroleum-based materials such as rubber and plastics, which can later be used in goods distributed worldwide.
Rosneft is publicly traded, but the holding company Rosneftgaz owns a controlling stake, and the Kremlin’s Federal Agency for State Property Management owns 100 percent of Rosneftgaz.
British oil giant BP divested its roughly 20 percent share in Rosneft shortly after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which was about the same time that the EU first levied sanctions on Rosneft.
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On July 18, the EU implemented a new round of restrictive measures on Russia after Slovakia dropped its opposition to the new measures.
This 18th round of EU sanctions lowered the price cap on Russian oil to 15 percent below the mean market price and tightened up its sanctions on Russia’s “shadow fleet” of oil tankers. The new measures also introduced a ban on transactions related to the “Nord Stream 1” and “Nord Stream 2” pipelines, as well as expanded the existing ban on transactions through the SWIFT banking system to a complete prohibition.
The EU also added new attempted barriers to Russia’s access to advanced dual-use technologies.
As Kyiv Post reported on Friday, India may soon feel the pressure of economic sanctions and tariffs after US President Donald Trump threatened secondary sanctions and tariffs on any countries doing business with Russia if Moscow fails to agree to a ceasefire by Sept. 2.