diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 858cfdb..96dcb05 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -78,6 +78,10 @@
       <artifactId>opentelemetry-sdk-extension-autoconfigure-spi</artifactId>
       <optional>true</optional>
     </dependency>
+    <dependency>
+      <groupId>io.opentelemetry</groupId>
+      <artifactId>opentelemetry-sdk</artifactId>
+    </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>io.opentelemetry</groupId>
       <artifactId>opentelemetry-semconv</artifactId>
diff --git a/src/main/java/com/redhat/resilience/otel/OTelCLIHelper.java b/src/main/java/com/redhat/resilience/otel/OTelCLIHelper.java
index f4bb255..b13ee04 100644
--- a/src/main/java/com/redhat/resilience/otel/OTelCLIHelper.java
+++ b/src/main/java/com/redhat/resilience/otel/OTelCLIHelper.java
@@ -134,8 +134,11 @@ public void stopOTel()
     {
         if ( otelEnabled() )
         {
-            log.debug("Finishing OTEL instrumentation for {}", root);
-            root.end();
+            log.debug("Finishing OpenTelemetry instrumentation for {}", root);
+            if (root != null)
+            {
+                root.end();
+            }
             spanProcessor.close();
             spanProcessor = null;
         }