RUSSIAN companies operating in the North Sea oil are to be reviewed following an intervention from a Scots MP.
Alistair Carmichael, MP for Orkney and Shetland, raised the issue of Russian oil tankers exporting Scottish oil with Boris Johnson today.
Mr Carmichael told the Prime Minister he was concerned about the message sent by ongoing Russian access to the UK economy, highlighting the presence of Russian-owned oil tankers at the Sullom Voe terminal in Shetland.
He said: "My constituents are asking me why they should be loading oil onto a Russian tanker while Russian troops are marching into Ukraine.
"I cannot think of a good answer to tell them. Can the Prime Minister tell me, will anything that he has announced today ensure that this will not happen again in the future?”
The Prime Minister responded: “I will of course immediately investigate what is happening with the Sovcomflot tanker but the result of the measures passed by the House the other day is that we can target any company, any entity that has a relation with the Russian state.”
Speaking in the House earlier in the day, Mr Carmichael said the UK Government's previous response to Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine was "inadequate" and explained: "I said that the Government’s response has been inadequate. That has been illustrated to me today by calls and emails I have received from constituents who tell me that at Sullom Voe oil terminal in Shetland, the oil tanker NS Challenger—which is owned and operated by Sovcomflot, a company wholly owned by the Russian Government—is, as we speak, loading oil for export out of Shetland."
He said that Russia was treating the UK's response as "business as usual".
The MP was speaking was prior to the Prime Minister's announcement of further sanctions and new laws aimed at throttling the flow of Russian money through the UK.
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