
Boycotting Lukoil would sting US gas station owners more than Russia's oil company
CNN
The hashtag #BoycottLukoil started trending online not long after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 21. The idea is to stop people from filling their tanks at the US gas stations that bear the name Lukoil, the Russian oil and gas giant.
The trouble is that most of the 230 Lukoil gas stations in the US are owned by individual American franchisees, not the oil giant itself. So any boycott will only slash the already razor-thin profit margins that US business owners rely upon.
"Retail gasoline sales are a tiny portion of the revenue of oil companies," said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at IHS Markit, a research firm. "When you compare their production of crude and trading cargos and barges, it is a small fraction of their business."