US pressure sinks bid to buy Lukoil assets

Gunvor Group says the US Treasury is “fundamentally misinformed” by branding it a Kremlin-linked entity

Global energy trader Gunvor Group has withdrawn its proposal to acquire foreign assets belonging to Russian oil major Lukoil after being accused by Washington of being affiliated with the Kremlin. 

The potential deal was announced last week, shortly after US President Donald Trump imposed new sanctions on Lukoil and another Russian oil firm, Rosneft. Trump described the measures as an effort to ramp up pressure on Moscow to resolve the Ukraine conflict.

Gunvor’s decision to pull out of the deal, announced on Friday, came a day after the US Treasury said the trader “will never get a license to operate and profit” while the Ukraine conflict continues. The company called the statement “fundamentally misinformed and false,” insisting that it has had no operational ties to Russia for years.

“Gunvor has for more than a decade actively distanced itself from Russia, stopped trading in line with sanctions, sold off Russian assets, and publicly condemned the war in Ukraine,” the firm said in a statement.

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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov commented on the development, saying commercial deals between private companies were not directly related to the Russian government, but the broader story highlighted that “illegal trade restrictions” imposed by the US are “unacceptable and hurt international trade.”

According to Bloomberg, Gunvor had been in discussions with the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), part of the Department of the Treasury, and other agencies within the Trump administration, to make the case for its buyout proposal. 

CEO Torbjorn Tornqvist publicly said such a deal would ensure a “clean break” for Lukoil’s foreign operations. The company reportedly raised around $2.8 billion in credit for the purchase before calling it off.

Gunvor, headquartered in Geneva, was co-founded in 2000 by Tornqvist and Russian entrepreneur Gennady Timchenko. Timchenko sold his stake in 2014, when Washington targeted him with personal sanctions.

The privately-owned Lukoil is Russia’s second-largest oil producer and operates all over the world, including in the US.