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Kommersant’s sources in Russia have accused Poland of blocking the growth of supplies of oil classified as “from Kazakhstan” through Russia and the Friendship Oil Pipeline to Germany’s Schwedt refinery. Based on the agreements Germany can import to the tune of 100,000 tons per month, but the Russians would like to send more. They avoid the topic of the Polish oil port that is able to provide supply without their input.
The oil pipelines operator Transneft informed that Kazakhstan has reserved 100 thousand tons of capacity of the Russian infrastructure for December. “Our Kazakh partners want to book 200 thousand tons for December. We are investigating the technical feasibility of such an order, but there has not yet been an official inquiry into this matter, ” said Igor Demin, President of Transneft, as quoted by Kommersant.
KazTransOil announced an increase in supply through the Friendship Oil Pipeline to Germany by 54 percent to 154 thousand tons in November. Allegedly the reason is supply problems through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, i.e. the infrastructure to the Naftoport in Novorossiysk, which had to be shut down due to storms, which have made loading impossible.
Kommersant determined that the Kazakhs could increase the use of Friendship to 200 thousand tons per month in December. “The newspaper’s sources in the industry have stressed that Poland may be the biggest obstacle as the northern part of the Friendship Pipeline runs through its territory. In the past, the country has opposed increasing supplies to 154,000 tons, citing an agreement for 100,000 tons per month,” Kommersant wrote.
“We implement our services in accordance with the schedules agreed with the customers,” Poland’s PERN replied in a commentary for BiznesAlert.pl.
Transneft provided KazTransOil with 1.2 million tons of annual capacity, but from January to October only 690 thousand tons were used, and another 100 thousand are to be used in November. December deliveries are to be doubled to 200,000 tons. All deliveries will go to the Schwedt refinery in Germany, where 54 percent of the shares are still held by Rosneft Deutschland, which is managed by the Berlin government.
The newspaper estimates that oil classified as coming from Kazakhstan and going via Russia arrives in the amount of about 350 thousand tons per month at the Naftoport in Ust-Luga. However, the Schwedt refinery also imports via the Rostock oilport (110,000 barrels per day). The newspaper does not mention a similar facility in Gdańsk, which can also deliver to Schwedt. It is already used by the Leuna refinery in Germany, which in the past received one hundred percent of its supplies from Russia. The operator of Polish oil pipelines PERN is considering an investment in the second line of the Pomerania oil pipeline to increase the possibilities of oil transmission from the Naftoport, but expects binding declarations from customers. In addition, the Poles expected the derusification of the Schwedt refinery before the start of deliveries from Gdańsk.
The maximum capacity of the Naftoport in Gdańsk is 40 million tons per year. Investments planned by 2025 are expected to increase it to 49 million tons per year. PERN estimates the Naftoport reloaded 36 million tons in 2023. The demand of the Schwedt refinery is about 12 million tons per year. Poland and Germany have not imported Russian oil since 2023 after Russia invaded Ukraine. Laboratory tests in Poland showed that oil classified as coming from the fields of Kazakhstan has the same chemical properties as Russian REBCO. It is different in the case of deliveries from Kazakhstan via the Naftoport in Gdańsk. BiznesAlert.pl was first to report that.
Kommersant / Wojciech Jakóbik
