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Czech Republic receives high-quality oil through Druzhba pipeline — State reserves head

This was confirmed by the tests, which were carried out on the borders of the republic and the states through which its transit takes place, Pavel Shvagr said

PRAGUE, June 20 / TASS /. The Czech Republic did not find the flow of non-compliant Russian oil pumped through the Druzhba pipeline, the chairperson of the National Office of State Reserves Pavel Shvagr told reporters on Thursday.

"We receive high-quality oil," he noted. "This was confirmed by the tests, which were carried out on the borders of the republic and the states through which its transit takes place. The inspections passed on the pipeline sections on the Slovak-Ukrainian and Czech-Slovak borders "We constantly check raw materials for compliance with the required standards."

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Russia's Transneft expects clean oil to reach Poland on June 8-9

Russian oil is in compliance with the existing regulations, from the southern branch of the Druzhba pipeline, which runs through Ukraine and Slovakia, entered the Czech Republic on May 27. Raw materials were first directed to the enterprise for its processing to the city of Litvinov

Czech storage tanks have accumulated oil, which, in case of crises with supplies from Russia, will ensure the functioning of the national economy for a maximum of two months. Until the end of this year, reserves should increase by half.

The Druzhba oil pipeline provides supplies of oil to Belarusian refineries and its transit to Europe through Belarus, Poland and Ukraine. In mid-April, Belneftekhim reported a sharp deterioration in the quality of the Russian oil running through the pipeline. As a result, several states stopped receiving and refining the Russian oil. The contaminant source was revealed at the Samara-Unecha section. Transneft said that the Russian oil in the Druzhba pipeline was deliberately contaminated. Russia’s Investigative Committee said that contaminated oil was loaded into the Druzhba oil pipeline in order to conceal multiple oil thefts.

Supplies of on-spec oil to Belarus resumed in early May.

On June 3, the talks on settlement of the issue around supplies of contaminated oil were held in Moscow, after which Russia’s Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin told reporters that all participants reached a common understanding of the principles for calculation of compensations for supplies of off-spec oil.

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