Shell (RDSA) said it was breaking completely with Russia’s giant energy industry, halting all purchases of Russian crude oil immediately and shutting its service stations in the country, writes CNN.

The UK-based company, which last week announced it was dumping its investments in Russia, said its decision to abandon all trade in Russian fossils fuels was “aligned with new government guidance”.

“Our actions to date have been guided by continuous discussions with governments about the need to disentangle society from Russian energy flows, while maintaining energy supplies”, - Shell CEO Ben Van Beurden said in a statement. “Threats today to stop pipeline flows to Europe further illustrate the difficult choices and potential consequences we face as we try to do this”.

Unless told to do otherwise by governments, Shell said it would immediately halt purchases of Russian crude oil on the spot market and not renew contracts. It would also reconfigure its supply chain to cut out Russian crude altogether.

“We will do this as fast as possible, but the physical location and availability of alternatives mean this could take weeks to complete and will lead to reduced throughput at some of our refineries”, - the company said in a statement.

Shell will also immediately begin to shut down its service stations, aviation fuels and lubricants operations in Russia in “the safest way” possible, and begin a phased withdrawal from Russian petroleum products, pipeline gas and liquified natural gas.