Russia has filed a lawsuit against Shell facilities, court documents show

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit against several of Shell’s major energy units, court documents showed on Friday.

The suit, filed at the Moscow Arbitration Court on October 2, was addressed to eight Shell units. The documents indicated it was launched by Gazprom Export, Russia’s energy ministry, regional authorities on the Pacific island of Sakhalin, Sakhalin Energy and Russia’s attorney general’s office.

No further details were provided. Shell declined to comment.

Shell had several projects in Russia before Moscow sent its military into Ukraine in February 2022 in what it called a special military operation. The company held a stake in a liquefied natural gas plant on the Pacific island of Sakhalin, run by Kremlin-controlled Gazprom.

Russia tightened its control over the plant in response to Western sanctions, and Shell left Russia. This meant it ended its involvement with the Sakhalin plant, as well as other activities such as investments in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project.

(Reporting by Reuters in Moscow and Ron Bousso in London; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Mark Trevelyan)