Russian crude oil ban costs Poland’s PKN Orlen $27 million daily

The ban on the supply of crude oil from Russia is costing the largest Polish oil refiner PKN Orlen approximately $27 million daily, according to Financial Times (FT) Daniel Obaitek, executive director of the concern. He added that the company still uses oil from the Druzhba pipeline to supply the refinery in Litvinov, Czech Republic.

“The complete replacement of Russian oil requires improved supply logistics, which we are working on with the Czech government,” the manager said.

Mr. Obaitek explained the current losses by the difference in cost between pipeline Russian fuel and more expensive alternative sources – it is about $30 per barrel.

According to Mr. Obaitek, Russian oil companies are still “flooding Europe with oil products,” despite EU restrictions. At the same time, the FT interlocutor did not provide specific evidence of violation of sanctions, the newspaper notes.

In addition, Mr. Obaitek criticized German producers, who, in his opinion, soon intend to get access to re-exported Russian crude oil.

“The German side should think about the moral implications of what they are doing… We are very interested in the German market, especially because we know it. We already have 600 stations there, but we are not going to stop there and can offer an alternative to diversification for the German oil refining sector,” said Mr. Obaitek.

Earlier, Kommersant reported on Warsaw’s attempts to achieve sanctions against the Druzhba pipeline (the pipeline was taken out of restrictions to provide countries that do not have access to alternative sources of supply) in order to terminate contracts with Russia without penalties. Having failed to achieve what she wanted, Orlen was going to sue Russian suppliers.

More about this – in the material “Kommersant” “Warsaw will demand for Friendship”.

Grigory Leiba