Lukoil tried to enter the grain trading market, — Bloomberg
10.02.2026 - 13:25
The Russian oil and gas corporation planned to diversify its business through grain trading in Dubai, but US sanctions thwarted the project before operations could begin.
Russian oil and gas corporation Lukoil attempted to enter the grain trading market in 2025 by creating a company in Dubai, Bloomberg reports.
According to media reports, Teruva FZCO was registered to implement the plans, and in the summer of 2025 Lukoil began hiring experienced grain traders. However, in October of the same year, the US imposed sanctions on Lukoil, which dramatically complicated banking operations and interaction with counterparties.
As a result, the grain project was never launched. Teruva FZCO was liquidated at the end of 2025 without carrying out a single trading operation. At the same time, the trading division of Litasco Corporation reduced staff and closed a number of areas of activity, including in the Middle East.
As Bloomberg notes, the creation of Teruva in Dubai was overseen by Chingiz Aliyev, and the head of the trading department was Omar Dbab, who represented the company at a raw materials conference in Berlin in October 2025. Before joining Lukoil, Dbab worked as a senior grain trader at Louis Dreyfus Company in Geneva.
In December 2025, the UK imposed sanctions against Aliyev, citing his leadership role in Litasco Middle East DMCC and Litasco SA, which are of strategic importance to Russia.
It is also reported that Lukoil has hired Leandro Racedo, a senior agricultural trader who previously worked at Al Ghurair Investment, Hartree Partners and Bunge, to work in Dubai.
Against the backdrop of sanctions, in January 2026 it became known that Lukoil had agreed to sell part of its foreign assets to the American investment company Carlyle. The deal includes the sale of LUKOIL International GmbH, which owns the group’s international assets.
The company said it was continuing negotiations with other potential buyers, and the decision to exit the international business was made after the introduction of blocking sanctions by the US and the UK in October 2025 due to Russia’s continued armed aggression against Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the EU has changed its risk assessment and is considering a blockade of Russian tankers.
