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As BP, Shell, ExxonMobil Announce Cutting Ties to Russia, Oil Baron Charles Koch Remains Silent About His Sprawling Russian Operations
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 8, 2022 ~

Charles Koch
Charles Koch, Chairman and CEO of Koch Industries
British Petroleum (BP), Shell, ExxonMobil and Norwegian oil and gas producer, Equinor, have all released statements indicating they are severing business ties with Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine. But billionaire oil baron Charles Koch, who has sat at the helm of Koch Industries for more than half a century, has been unusually quiet about his plans for his sprawling Russian operations.

According to Koch Industries, one of the largest private corporations in the world, three of its companies operate in Russia: Molex, a manufacturer of semi-conductors, printed circuits, fiber optics and a multitude of other electrical components; Koch Engineered Solutions, which makes process and pollution control equipment; and Guardian Industries, a glass and auto parts manufacturer. Another unit of Koch Industries, Koch Supply and Trading, has a history of trading Russian oil.

Guardian Industries’ division, Guardian Glass, has two large plants in Russia: one in Ryazan and one in Rostov. The Rostov plant was described as follows in a 2011 press release from Guardian Glass:

“The $220-million plant will be Guardian’s largest, producing 900 tons of glass per day, and will include a technologically advanced glass coater.

“The Rostov plant will produce Guardian’s high-performance, energy-efficient ClimaGuard(R) (residential) and SunGuard(R) (commercial) glass products for construction of homes, offices, retail, health-care and other facilities. The plant is expected to begin operation in mid-2012, based on fulfillment of all incentives and agreements with local authorities, and will initially create 300 new jobs…

“The location is a good fit for Guardian’s growth strategy to supply glass to Russia and neighboring countries….”

Should Charles Koch be supplying glass for “homes, offices, retail, health care” in Russia while Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the name of Russia, is bombing homes, offices and hospitals into rubble in Ukraine and ruthlessly killing innocent children and families?

In addition to imposing sweeping financial sanctions, both the European Union and the U.S. have imposed sanctions intended to strip Russia of technology that would allow its economy to advance while it bombs its neighbor and makes thinly-veiled threats about its potential use of nuclear weapons. According to the European Council on Foreign Relations, this is what those technology sanctions consist of:

“The long list of advanced technologies subject to de facto bans on exports to Russia includes semiconductors, telecommunications equipment, software (including that for encryption), lasers, aviation and space systems, and oil-refining machinery. While EU sanctions are limited to sales and exports to Russia from within the union, the US now prohibits exports to Russia and Belarus from anywhere in the world of any product created using American software or equipment. With other important tech players such as South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan having joined the blockade, Russia is largely cut off from the global high-tech industry.”

This raises the question as to whether products produced within Russia by U.S. corporations need to be separately sanctioned. Other major corporations did not need to have that spelled out and quickly announced that they were severing relationships with Russia. Koch, however, is not known for altruistic behavior. In fact, it is known for exactly the opposite.

According to ImportGenius.com, in the past eight years Koch Supply and Trading has purchased large amounts of oil from two Russian companies, Gazprom Neft and Surgutex. Koch Supply and Trading is a sprawling trading octopus that operates in the dark for the most part. For all anyone knows, it could be trading Russian oil on world markets, which could be propping up the price of Russian oil and helping to finance Putin’s brutal and murderous campaign in Ukraine.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the first-ever shipments of Russian crude oil purchased by the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 2002 were supplied by Koch Industries.

For the past forty years, Charles Koch has been involved in creating and funding a sprawling network of front groups that seek to shrink the federal government in order to gut it of its regulatory powers over corporations – particularly those involved with fossil fuels, like his own Koch Industries. Charles Koch, who is currently worth $53 billion according to Forbes, also holds semi-annual strategy meetings with like-minded billionaires and millionaires to plan how to sway election outcomes to candidates that will do their bidding in Congress.

In 2014, then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accused Charles Koch and his brother, David (who died in 2019) of trying “to fix every election in America to their liking.” That was the same year that Koch Industries launched its first ever nationwide marketing campaign – which since that time has enriched media outlets with millions of dollars in ads for its consumer paper products division which produces such items as Dixie disposable paper plates, bowls, cups and Northern Quilted and Angel Soft bath tissue.

Charles Koch tried to distance himself in the media from Donald Trump’s reelection bid but he and Koch Industries were deeply incentivized to ensure that Donald Trump had another four years as President, because the first Trump administration had been packed with Koch-friendly operatives.

A Koch nonprofit front group that played a major role in the 2016 presidential election was Freedom Partners. (It shuttered in 2019.) It was hard to see where Freedom Partners began and Koch Industries ended. In 2018, we took a hard look at Freedom Partners’ Board of Directors. We found that all but one of its Board Members was a current or former Koch company employee. According to the Center for Media and Democracy, Freedom Partners ended up with 12 of its former employees working in the Trump Administration.

Freedom Partners Action Fund, a related organization that pummeled Democrats in attack ads in the leadup to the 2016 election, had received at least $14 million from Charles Koch and his trust before it shuttered its operations.

Freedom Partners put their marching orders for the first Trump administration in a formal memo. The Trump administration quickly marched to the beat, from the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord to the massive tax cut for corporations.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), seen as an enemy by the fossil fuels industry, was handily dealt with by the Trump administration. He put industry cronies in charge. Koch Industries has been serially charged, including a criminal conviction, with dangerously polluting the environment. On January 13, 2000, the Justice Department and the Environmental Protection Agency announced the largest civil fine ever imposed against Koch Industries to resolve claims related to its “more than 300 oil spills from its pipelines and oil facilities in six states.” The company agreed to pay a $30 million civil penalty and spend $5 million on environmental projects. Daniel Schulman documented Koch Industries’ history of environmental abuses in his 2014 book, Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America’s Most Powerful and Private Dynasty.

The activities of Charles Koch and Koch Industries are incompatible with a democracy. They have funded climate denial front groups for decades. They’ve turned much of the Republican Party into parrots of Ayn Rand. They own a political campaign services company with a massive voter database called i360 that works on behalf of Koch-approved candidates for both state and federal office. (How is it legal, by the way, for a fossil fuels conglomerate to function as a de facto political party/get out the vote operation?) And as we reported in January of last year, the money trail to the January 6 siege on the Capitol leads directly to Charles Koch and Koch Industries.

Last March, Daniel Lippman at Politico reported that Charles Koch had made a commitment to donate $4.5 million over five years to the think tank, the Atlantic Council. What happened next was that a pro-Russian article popped up on the Atlantic Council’s website. The co-author of the piece, Emma Ashford, had come from the Cato Institute. (For how the Koch brothers kept their ownership of the non-profit think tank, the Cato Institute, a secret for decades, see our report: Secret Owners of Cato Institute Surface as Koch Brothers Move to Take Control.)

The article on Russia at the Atlantic Council was so bad that 22 of the think-tanks’ staffers and fellows released a statement distancing themselves from the article. According to Lippman, “One person who signed the statement told POLITICO that they worried the article was, or might be viewed as, a shoddy work product influenced by a $4.5 million donation over five years to the Atlantic Council from Charles Koch, who advocates for less American intervention abroad.”

Something has gone incredibly wrong with U.S. intelligence and the U.S. national security apparatus for this Koch Industries structure to be tolerated in America.

Playing all 2 OILD SCO and DRIP

US Treasury said a company purchasing oil from a Russian company would still be able to route the payment through a non-sanctioned third-country financial institution as an intermediary for credit to a sanctioned financial institution’s customer in settlement of the transaction.”

Need to keep the Petrodollars flowing so no ban on Gazprom, LUkoil or Rosneft cash flow.
Also new negotiations with Venezuela and Iran will bring more petrodollars

US & Iran Close To Reaching Nuclear Deal In Vienna, Biden Officials Signal

Tyler Durden's Photo
BY TYLER DURDEN
WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 - 02:25 PM
Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Biden administration officials are signaling that the US and Iran are close to reaching an agreement to revive the nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, The New York Times reported on Monday.

The JCPOA negotiations that have been ongoing in Vienna are currently on pause as diplomats have returned to their capitals for consultations. Envoys on all sides have signaled the talks are entering their final stage and that now "political decisions" need to be mad

The alleged meeting with the government Washington considers ‘illegitimate’ comes amid efforts to replace Russian oil
Senior US officials reportedly traveled to Venezuela to meet with President Nicolás Maduro’s government as Russia’s conflict with Ukraine continues. Citing multiple unnamed sources “familiar with the matter,” the New York Times reported on Saturday that the meeting is the “highest-level visit” from the US in years after it broke diplomatic relations with the country in 2019 and recognized pro-US politician Juan Guaido as “interim” president of Venezuela over the legitimate President Nicolas Maduro.
US President Joe Biden’s administration is allegedly attempting to “separate Russia from its remaining international allies” as unnamed US officials believe Moscow’s allies in Latin America “could become security threats if the standoff with Russia” over Ukraine worsens.
READ MORE: Venezuela’s Maduro gives his take on Russia-Ukraine conflict
Former Republican Virginia Congressman Scott Taylor claimed on Friday that a Venezuelan businessman had suggested Maduro was open to discussion with the US, while Maduro himself said in a speech on Thursday that “the oil of Venezuela” was “available for whomever wants to produce and buy it, be it an investor from Asia, Europe or the United States.”
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<img src="https://cdni.rt.com/files/2022.02/xxs/620131172030274e784c7765.jpg" alt="US weighs seizing Venezuelan oil – reports"/>
READ MORE: US weighs seizing Venezuelan oil – reports
While the senior US officials are reportedly meeting with Maduro’s government, the US government still officially recognizes Guaido as the leader of Venezuela and does not recognize Maduro’s presidency as legitimate.
In a statement from January, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said the government “continues to recognize the authority of the democratically elected 2015 National Assembly as the last remaining democratic institution and Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s interim president.” In July, the US State Department called Maduro’s government “illegitimate” five times in a single article.

US Considers Chevron Request To Take, Trade Venezuelan Oil As Oil Giant Pushes For Production Boost
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BY TYLER DURDEN
MONDAY, FEB 07, 2022 - 12:14 PM
The Biden administration is currently reviewing a request from Chevron to potentially allow the U.S. oil giant to take and trade crude from Venezuela as a form of payment for the millions of dollars the South American producer owes Chevron for its joint ventures there, Reuters reported on Monday, quoting sources with knowledge of the talks.
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As Charles Kennedy writes at OilPrice.com, Chevron is the last remaining U.S. oil producer with staff and offices in Venezuela and has a joint venture with the local state-controlled oil firm PDVSA.

The U.S. major is now lobbying with the Biden Administration to be allowed sanctions relief and be able to take and trade Venezuelan crude as a means to recover the dividends and payments it is owed by the joint venture with PDVSA, according to Reuters’ sources.
The administration has an incentive to ease some of the sanctions on Venezuela, most importantly, to bring something to the negotiating table with the Venezuelan regime, one of those sources told Reuters.
Yet, some officials in the Biden administration are not inclined to the Administration’s easing of the sanctions in any way, at least not until Nicolas Maduro makes first steps toward ensuring democratic elections, the sources added.
Additionally, last week, Kennedy reported that Chevron is in talks with the Venezuelan government to gain more control over their joint venture and help Caracas boost oil production.
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Bloomberg reported that the negotiations are being led by the chief of Chevron’s Venezuelan division, Javier La Rosa, and PDVSA’s president, Asdrubal Chavez, according to unnamed sources in the know.
The two had discussed PDVSA giving the U.S. super-major greater control over the joint operation in exchange for some debt relief. For now, however, the negotiations are informal because Chevron would need a sanctions waiver to make any formal commitments.
Chevron and PDVSA operate four oil fields together. Before U.S. sanctions, these produced around 200,000 bpd, according to Bloomberg. Now, they are producing around 140,000 bpd, the report also said.
While Chevron has been present in Venezuela for decades and has continued operating in the country under a series of waivers granted by the U.S. federal government, in 2020, the company wrote off its total $2.6-billion investment in the South American country due to the excessive uncertainty around Venezuela’s oil industry.
Last year, after President Joe Biden took office, Chevron lobbied for laxer sanctions on Caracas so it could operate in the country with fewer constraints.
Venezuela, meanwhile, is ramping up oil production despite the sanctions, largely with the help of Iranian condensate that it uses to dilute its superheavy crude. Last year, PDVSa managed to reverse a decline in oil exports, booking a modest climb of 1% in annual exports, most of which went to China, Reuters reported last month.
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Production also increased, with the average for 2021 at around 600,000 bpd, with the December daily jumping to over 800,000 bpd, with one daily spike to 1 million bpd—the closest PDVSA got to its planned ramp-up to 1.28 million bpd for the full year.
It is as part of these production boost efforts that the government in Caracas has become willing to give foreign partners of PDVSA a greater say in the operation of the joint ventures

the U.S. Treasury Department went to great trouble to explain the nub of the point: “Treasury is reiterating ... that energy payments can and should continue.” In its further detailed guidance, just in case any would-be sanctions evader thought that they would have to engage in any tricky manoeuvring to circumvent the wrath of the U.S., the Treasury explained how to use the waiver to continue to deal with a Russian oil or gas company: “For example, a company purchasing oil from a Russian company would be able to route the payment through a non-sanctioned third-country financial institution as an intermediary for credit to a sanctioned financial institution’s customer in settlement of the transaction.” The Treasury concluded: “Treasury remains committed to permitting energy-related payments - ranging from production to consumption for a wide array of energy sources - involving specified sanctioned Russian banks.”
Even in the unlikely event that this extraordinary free-for-all waiver is stopped, the third reason why China and Russia will continue to go about their oil and gas trade – and all other trades – relatively unhindered is that over the past few years they have been securing their own bilateral infrastructural and financial structures for years,

Opening up Venezuela and Iran to petrodollars and becoming best friends with their respective murderous killing dictators new Biden policy.

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