Moscow Seizes Russian Explosives Facility of U.S.-based Oil Services Firm, Schlumberger

Russia’s General Prosecutor’s Office filed a lawsuit to nationalize production facilities of U.S.-based oilfield services company SLB (previously known as Schlumberger) in Bashkortostan.

The document stating this is published on the website of the Russian Electronic Justice.

The local court granted the claim at the end of July; the case files are classified, and the arbitration case archive includes empty pages.

The said facilities were used to manufacture explosives for oil well drilling.

On August 8, the company registered an appeal with the 18th Arbitration Court of Appeal in Chelyabinsk.

The party to the case was a subsidiary of SLB, and on the other hand, the local office of Russia’s Federal Security Service, Federal Agency for State Property Management (Rosimushchestvo), State Corporation Rostec, and its subsidiary Avangard.

Avangard produces explosives for the Russian defense ministry and now seeks to take over SLB’s production facilities. The two companies are registered in the same premises in Sterlitamak at Oleg Koshovoy Street, 2.

The facility could be used to make military explosives.

SLB announced it was halting shipments of products and technology into Russia from all of its facilities worldwide in response to the continued expansion of international sanctions in July. The company did not exit Russia last year even as other oil majors Exxon, Shell and BP scrambled to quit Russia after the invasion, announcing their decision to leave within days or weeks and writing off billions in assets.