Ex-minister who warned on sanctions works for oil trader linked to Russia
Earlier this month, former foreign minister Sir Alan Duncan warned of the risk of imposing too many sanctions on Russia. He warned the economic retaliation could backfire, with a high cost for Britain.
The former Conservative MP highlighted in an interview the risk to future UK gas supplies from sanctions. The message was clear: ministers need to tread carefully in waging economic war against the Kremlin.
Duncan, a former minister of state for Europe and the Americas, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Of course we want to disadvantage Russia, but we don’t want to disadvantage ourselves that we fall into some kind of dystopian economic collapse. And we are on the edge of that.”
It was a sobering analysis, but failed to note that sanctions also threatened to bite into the revenues of some of the world’s biggest energy traders, including Duncan’s own employer, Vitol. It was said that Duncan worked for a large energy trader in the interview, but did not mention his firm’s significant stake in the biggest oil project in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union, one that Vladimir Putin has said will “strengthen Russia’s position in the Arctic”.
While most of the international focus on the energy industry’s links to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine has been on the major oil companies, including BP and Shell, major energy traders are now under mounting pressure over their links to Russia.
Vitol and Trafigura, two of the biggest oil traders, have stakes in Vostok Oil, a vast oil and gas oil project in the Arctic. Campaigners warn it will transform a fragile ecosystem into a sprawling industrial hub. It is estimated the project will tap into more than 6bn tonnes of oil reserves, with output proposed to reach more than 100m
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