BP has purged its European refineries of Russian oil and expects to be rid of most long-term contracts with the Kremlin by year's end

• UK energy giant BP has taken Russian oil out its European refineries, Bloomberg reported.
• Four of its refineries in Spain, Germany and the Netherlands have been emptied of Russian crude.

BP has cleared its European refineries of Russian oil and expects to be free of most of its long-term contracts with the Kremlin by year's end, Bloomberg reported.

The UK energy giant has emptied its four refineries in Spain, Germany and the Netherlands of Russian crude, while the company continues to carry out the terms of current deals.

"We're working incredibly hard to eliminate Russian molecules from the system," CEO Bernard Looney told Bloomberg after BP reported earnings. "We're complying with existing contracts — they're really only a very small number right now and I would think that we'd be mostly cleared from all of them by the end of the year."

BP joins other companies from Europe and the US in shunning Russian crude as the war in Ukraine rages on. Meanwhile, the European Union is expected to announce as soon as this week a phased-in embargo on Russian oil.

Despite early condemnation of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a full-scale shift away from dependence on Russian oil has come with caveats.

Shell faced condemnation in March for purchasing supplies at steep discounts from the Kremlin while mixing Russian oil with other crude sources and relabeling it as non-Russian crude.

Looney noted that BP's rules forbid the company from purchasing refined oil that has been mixed with Russian crude.