The Austrian group OMV and the German company Wintershall Dea will officially lose their stakes in the Russian Arctic gas extraction projects, according to a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin, reports Reuters.

OMV withdrew from Russia last year, following the conflict in Ukraine.

Wintershall Dea, a joint venture between BASF and Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman‘s investment firm LetterOne, is in the process of exiting the Russian market, according to Agerpres.

All activities with Russian participation, including Wintershall Dea’s stake in the Nord Stream gas pipeline, as well as joint ventures with Gazprom, will be legally separated by the middle of next year.

According to the decree, the participations of OMV and Wintershall Dea in the Yuzhno-Russkoye deposit and in the Achimov projects will go to newly created Russian companies. Both projects are in the Yamal-Nenets region in the far north of Russia.

All the shares held by foreign companies in the joint ventures with Gazprom will go to new Russian entities. Shareholders will receive shares in proportion to their holdings in the joint ventures. The profits from the sale of these shares will be placed in special accounts. All corporate agreements previously in force are no longer valid from the moment of publication of the decree, stated the authorities in Moscow.