Tausi Insider

The Vladimir Arsenyev tanker at the crude oil terminal Kozmino in Russia, on Aug. 12. TATIANA MEEL/Reuters The Kremlin’s ability to pay for its war in Ukraine depends largely on the sale of hydrocarbons. Oil and natural gas represent 20 per cent of Russia’s GDP and haul in almost half of its budget income. Cut that Volga-River-sized flow of cash into the Russian money vaults and President Vladimir Putin will be forced to sue for peace. Or so the theory goes. Since the start of the war in February, the West, especially the European Union, has imposed wave after wave of sanctions, embargoes and trade measures against Russia, ranging from ejecting Russian banks from the Swift global financial messaging system to virtually eliminating Russian coal from the European electricity-generation mix. The Western assault has pushed Russia into recession (though not one as deep as expected). But oil exports, the lifeblood of its economy, continues to prop up Mr. Putin’s war machine. In the first h...

Shell SHEL-N is considering exiting its home energy retail businesses in Britain, the Netherlands and Germany in the wake of “tough market conditions,” it said on Thursday. European energy suppliers have struggled over the past year with soaring wholesale prices and efforts by governments to shield consumers from rising bills. Shell said it had launched a strategic review of the three businesses which is likely to take a few months, but that no decision had been taken yet on their future. Shell injected nearly $1.5-billion in cash and credit into its British energy retail business in 2022 to help it weather huge volatility in power prices that caused the collapse of several rival UK utilities. Shell Energy Retail, its UK business, has 1.4 million customers, while its German business has 110,000 and the Dutch business 15,000. Shell said its wholesale and business-to-business (B2B) energy supply businesses were not part of the strategic review, and neither were its home energy supply b...