Although the Biden administration has shot down calls to sanction the Russian energy sector directly, the country's oil and gas industry is still suffering immensely.
Some Russian oil companies have cut ties with sanctioned state-backed lenders such as VTB and Sberbank, switching instead to unrestricted financial institutions including Rosbank, Unicredit and Raiffeisen, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
"We haven't been able to receive payments from our counterparties since last week, so [we] had to make changes to keep business going," a source at a Russian oil company told the outlet.
Despite the availability of alternatives, Energy Aspects' director of research, Amrita Sen, told CNBC on Wednesday that sanctions still pigeonhole the industry.
"Because of the banking sanctions, we've estimated about 70% of Russian crude oil exports can't be touched," Sen said.
At the same time Russia's domestic industry struggles, Exxon Mobil announced in a news release on Tuesday that it would discontinue an oil and gas project in the Sakhalin Islands in the far east of the country and suspend further investments.
"ExxonMobil supports the people of Ukraine as they seek to defend their freedom and determine their own future as a nation. We deplore Russia's military action that violates the territorial integrity of Ukraine and endangers its people," the company said.
The decision by Exxon Mobil came after competitors BP and Shell announced plans to divest their stakes in Russian oil companies.
On Sunday, BP announced in a press release that it would sell its stake in Rosneft.
BP Chairman Helge Lund said in a statement connected to the release that the Russian invasion of Ukraine "has led the BP board to conclude, after a thorough process, that our involvement with Rosneft, a state-owned enterprise, simply cannot continue."
Shell followed BP a day later, declaring in a news release that it would end its partnership with Gazprom and all involvement in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project.
"Our decision to exit is one we take with conviction," Shell CEO Ben van Beurden said in a statement connected to the news release. "We cannot — and we will not — stand by."
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