London (Platts)--31Jul2014/507 am EDT/907 GMT

Shell CEO Ben van Beurden said Thursday, July 31 that the recent events around the Ukraine crisis, including the crash of flight MH17 and the subsequent US and EU sanctions against Moscow, were a "game-changer" from an international political, economic and trade point of view.

Shell, which has assets in both Russia and Ukraine, has also declared force majeure on its unconventional gas exploration operations in eastern Ukraine, van Beurden said on a Q2 earnings conference call.

Van Beurden said it was too early to know exactly what the impact of the latest international sanctions against Russia would be for Shell.

"As a company we are not as exposed to Russia as some of our competitors," he said.

"But it is a bit of a game changer from a political, economic and trade and investment perspective," he said.

"There are new developments all the time and it will go on for a little while before it will settle down. We are monitoring all this intently, but it is too early to see how it will play out and what response we will need to have," he said.

Van Beurden said the EU sanctions addressed mainly oil projects, so its Sakahalin 2 LNG project may not be affected.

Shell is also a partner in the Salym oil project in Western Siberia.

In Ukraine, van Beurden said Shell cannot continue operations at its eastern shale gas acreage, which is located close to the site of the MH17 crash.

"It is roughly in the same region," he said. "The operation we had on unconventional exploration program is on hold. We have declared force majeure as we cannot continue operations there."

--Stuart Elliott, stuart.elliott@platts.com
--Edited by Maurice Geller, maurice.geller@platts.com

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