After the United States imposed sanctions on October 23, 2025 on Lukoil, the company began preparing the sale of its foreign assets. On October 30, it said it had agreed to transfer all of its international projects to the Swiss oil trader Gunvor Group and had committed not to negotiate with other bidders. The deal can only be completed with approval from OFAC and, if required, regulators in other jurisdictions.
Lukoil, Russia’s largest private oil company, spent years building an international vertically integrated business modeled on Shell and ExxonMobil. Its portfolio included upstream, refining, and retail assets in Europe, the United States, the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America. According to the report, that roughly twenty-year strategy is now effectively coming to an end.
Gunvor was founded in 2000 by Swedish businessman Torbjorn Tornqvist and Gennady Timchenko. During Vladimir Putin’s early years in power, the company expanded rapidly through Russian oil trading. Public Eye estimated that by 2007 more than 70% of Gunvor’s deals involved Russian crude, and its share of Russia’s oil exports had reached about 30%.
After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Timchenko was sanctioned and sold his stake to Tornqvist. At the time, the US Treasury said Timchenko’s actions in the energy sector were directly linked to Vladimir Putin and that Putin might have investments in Gunvor and access to company funds. After the full-scale war began, Gunvor said it condemned Russia’s actions and had not traded oil of Russian origin since 2023.
Experts Ilya Shumanov and Tatiana Mitrova argue that, formally, foreign regulators may now view Gunvor as independent from Russia, but the choice of such a buyer makes the transaction politically sensitive and more about shielding the assets from sanctions pressure than a routine commercial sale.
The article also notes that Tornqvist has maintained personal ties with Russia and continued visiting the country after the start of the war against Ukraine.