Oil supplies to the Czech Republic via the Druzhba pipeline will not be resumed

Oil deliveries via the southern branch of the Druzhba oil pipeline to the Czech Republic will not be resumed, informed TASS with reference to the official representative of Transpetrol, which is the operator of the Slovak part of Druzhba, Linda Vashkovichova.

She noted that the oil has already arrived in Slovakia, and will soon reach Hungary. According to Vashkovichova, the Hungarian concern MOL, which owns enterprises in Hungary and Slovakia, dealt with the settlement of payment for the transit of Russian oil. Czech enterprises, which previously received raw materials from Russia via the pipeline, belong to the Polish concern PKN Orlen.

The owner and operator of the Czech part of Druzhba, the state-owned company MERO, confirmed that oil supplies through the pipeline in the Czech Republic have been stopped for the time being. The Minister of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic, Josef Sikela, said on his Twitter page that Warsaw and Prague are working to obtain oil for the republic and are looking for a solution that “will be acceptable from a legal and technical point of view.”

On August 4, Ukrtransnafta stopped the pumping of Russian oil through one of the branches of the pipeline to Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, said the adviser to the president of the Russian operator Druzhba, the company “Transneft» Igor Demin. The reason was the inability to pay for oil pumping services through Ukrainian territory after the introduction of the seventh package of European sanctions. sent through Gazprombank the payment was returned to the Transneft account. Demin specified that the Ukrainian company provides oil transportation services on a 100% prepayment basis.

August 10 Reuters reportedthat the Hungarian oil and gas company MOL paid for the transit of Russian oil through Ukraine via Druzhba. MOL and the Slovak plant Slovnaft agreed with the Ukrainian side to resume supplies, oil pumping began on the same day at 16:00 Moscow time.

The Druzhba pipeline starts in the Samara region, passes through Bryansk, and then splits into two branches: northern and southern. The northern oil flows through Belarus in the direction of Poland, Germany and the Baltic States, the southern – to the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. According to Transneft, oil exports to non-CIS countries via Druzhba in 2021 amounted to 35.9 million tons. In February, the company announced plans to increase pumping to 45.5 million tons per year.