Filling up your car with gas is one of those daily routine things that most people don’t think about. A small portion of drivers try to research the different grades of gasoline and which brands offer them, many others which gas station has the lowest price or is the most convenient to visit.
Unless they are deep in petrol science or have long-standing brand loyalty, a name at the pumps means very little, let alone the country of the brand. That’s why many Americans may be unaware that one of Russia’s largest oil companies has a large retail presence in some parts of the country.
Lukoil is Russia’s second largest oil company and was founded in the waning days of the Soviet Union. Its large, global footprint currently includes approximately 200 gas stations operating in the northeastern United States. However, the days of American Lukoil stations being owned by Russia are coming to an end, with the company announcing plans to sell its international operations to a US investment group.
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While Russia’s global status as a major exporter of petroleum is well known, genuine Russian-owned gasoline retailers are less common outside of Russia, and particularly in the US. And even in the United States, you’ve never encountered a Lukoil station unless you live in New York, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania, where the vast majority of these stations are located.
Lukoil was founded as a Russian state-owned oil company in 1991, just before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the company became privately owned in 1993. Lukoil established its US retail presence in 2000, when it acquired Getty Oil and its franchised gasoline stations in the Northeast. In addition to these US retail stations, Lukoil’s international operations also include subsidiaries in approximately 30 countries around the world, including the Middle East, Europe and South America.
Interestingly, country-owned Lukoil isn’t the only gas station chain in the U.S. to have rocky relations with the U.S. by early 2026. Citgo, which has an even larger presence in the U.S., has actually been indirectly owned by Venezuela for decades. Both gasoline brands have come under legal and diplomatic pressure from the US government.
In normal times, the country of origin of a petrol brand may not be a big deal. However, the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022 triggered widespread global sanctions against Russia and Russian-owned companies that have had strategic and economic implications around the world and have also affected Russia’s joint space operations.
