All news

Russian energy chief says Druzhba contaminated oil crisis solved

"Russia has been supplying high-quality oil for a long time, Alexander Novak stated

OSAKA / Japan /, June 29. / TASS /. The Russian oil pollution crisis supplied through the Druzhba pipeline has been overcome; Russia has long been supplying high-quality oil, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told reporters on Saturday.

"We have already overcome the crisis, in principle, we have been supplying high-quality oil for a long time," he said.

Novak noted that work is continuing on the volumes of dirty oil that are still in storage, this issue requires more time. "We are doing this together with scientists, together with Transneft, they already have specific proposals," he said, adding that the oil will be analyzed soon.

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.