Published on Wednesday 02 March 2022
BCP Council is deeply saddened by the invasion of Ukraine and hope there is an end to so much unnecessary suffering soon.
In response to the crisis, BCP Council has been reviewing our contracts and pension suppliers.
BCP Council does not have any direct contractual links with Gazprom, or any other Russian supply, although we do not necessarily know about the full supply chains of those we contract with.
We are currently in the process of asking our contractors if there are any indirect links with Russian companies and markets.
BCP Council is part of the Dorset County Pension Fund, which is administrated by Dorset Council.TheBrunel Pension Partnership is Dorset Council’s investment pooling manager.
A Dorset Council Spokesperson said: "We do have some indirect exposure to Russian companies through the pension fund’s investments in an emerging markets equity fund managed by Brunel Pension Partnership, Dorset’s investment pooling manager.
"The value of this exposure is estimated to be approximately £5m or 0.13% of the pension fund’s total assets of £3.8bn.
"This matter will be considered by the Pension Fund Committee when it meets next Thursday, 10 March."
More information about the approach being taken by Brunel can be found at: https://www.brunelpensionpartnership.org/2022/03/01/responding-to-crises/"
Poole Housing Partnership’s contract with Gazprom ended on 30 September 2021, and at that point gas contracts transferred to LASER, with gas being supplied by Total Gas and Power.
BCP Council currently buys gas and electricity from Laser, which is owned by Kent County Council.
In a statement to customers today (Wednesday 2 February) Nigel Hartnup, Director of Energy at LASER, reassured us they had taken action to investigate any Russian links to our gas supplies.
He said: "We want to reassure you that your LASER gas contracts have no direct link with Russia. However, Russia does supply a large amount of gas into Europe and therefore we are in the process of asking our major Gas suppliers (TGP, Corona and SSE) if there are any indirect links within their supply chain. We will share their responses once we have received them.
"Please note with immediate effect, LASER has suspended Gazprom from our fixed price existing Gas framework and we will not be including them in future contracting opportunities. Gazprom are not part of our flexible gas or electricity supply frameworks."