The cash price for unleaded gas posted outside Michael Tusinac’s window at his gas station in Morristown, N.J.: $4.49 a gallon. The price would rise another 10 cents within two days. But the bigger problem was the station’s red and white Lukoil sign.“It’s killing me,” Tusinac said.

He was on the phone with his landlord, Kashmir Gill, who also runs a Lukoil gas station, just up the road in Whippany.The two men shared their laments at being tied to a Russian oil giant that is now a target for American protests over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Lukoil is a corporate pariah. Two decades ago, it entered the U.S. market harboring big dreams, with even Vladimir Putin flying in for the opening of one Lukoil station. Now, its gas stations face boycotts and calls to shut down.

Tusinac has had picketers some days. Forty minutes away in Newark, local leaders voted to force that city’s two Lukoil stations to close. And New Jersey’s governor was just on TV talking about taking action against all Lukoil stations in the state.

“Did your volume go down in the last couple of days?” Gill asked.“Hell, yeah,” Tusinac said. “Forty percent.”

Gill laughed. His station had been hit, too. The news was so bad it was funny.“I have no idea what to do,” Tusinac said.

Lukoil, one of the world’s largest energy producers and the second-biggest oil company in Russia, is caught in the middle of an economic war with the West, as previously welcomed Russian companies are cut out from the international system.

The broad and swift unwinding of Russia’s ties to the global economy — spurred by public backlash to Russia’s invasion and the pressure on Western governments to respond — has led to confusion and chaos, resulting in collateral damage for people including American franchise owners Tusinac and Gill, whose stations don’t even sell Russian gasoline, as well as for Lukoil, which former executives and experts described as maintaining a degree of independence from Putin during his decades in power.

Posted in: USA