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Expert: Termination of Russian-Ukrainian deal on oil products pipelines just a 'formality'

Russia was just maintaining its oil products pipelines as they had been sold to a Swiss company, the expert explains

KIEV, October 13. /TASS/. The termination of the Russian-Ukrainian agreement on the use of oil products pipelines is a mere formality and will not have any implications, head of the Consulting Group A-95 Sergey Kuyun told TASS.

"This is just a formal decision. Russia was just maintaining its oil products pipelines as they had been sold to a Swiss company and one of them was put out of service about ten years ago," Kuyun said. According to him, the currently operating Samara - Zapadnoye pipeline was put back into service this past June, as before, it provides diesel fuel to customers in Ukraine.

Earlier on Thursday, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev issued instructions to pull the plug on the above mentioned intergovernmental agreement signed in Moscow on July 26, 1995. The agreement, in particular, stipulated that the subsidiaries of Russia’s Transnefteproduct, a member of the Transneft joint-stock company, would operate the Samara - Zapadnoye and the Grozny - Armavir - Trudovaya pipelines passing through Ukrainian territory.

In February 2016, the Ukrainian sectors of the pipelines were sold to the Swiss International Trading Partners AG company. Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service and Ukraine’s Antimonopoly Committee endorsed the deal in late 2015. In light of this, Russia came to the conclusion that its further participation in the agreement made no economic sense.