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Lukoil restores deliveries after pollution in Druzhba pipeline, with no damage to exports

Currently there are no complaints as to the oil quality, according to the company's official

MOSCOW, July 10. /TASS/. Lukoil has fully restored the volume of oil supplies after the incident with oil pollution in the Druzhba export pipeline, thanks to redistributing supplies through other channels, First Vice President of Lukoil Vadim Vorobyov told TASS.

"On the part of Lukoil’s permanent western partners — oil buyers on the southern branch of Druzhba and those from Belarus — there are currently no complaints about quality inconsistency of the supplied oil with the agreed parameters. Delivery volumes are also fully restored to the contract level," Vorobyov said.

Transneft offered Lukoil the opportunity to redistribute supplies through other channels, including sea ports, "which made it possible to avoid negative consequences in executing export contracts," he noted.

According to Vorobyov, Lukoil constantly monitors the concentration of organochlorine in the oil flowing through the main pipelines to refineries and export terminals. The results of the measurements confirm stabilization of the monitored indicators within the standard values, he added.

The Druzhba pipeline incident

The Druzhba pipeline provides oil supplies to Belarusian refineries and its transit to Europe.

Pollution of oil with organochlorine in the pipeline, discovered in April, led to the suspension of pumping of Russian oil to Poland, Ukraine, Germany, Hungary, and Slovenia. Belarusian refineries were forced to reduce the load due to the lack of pure oil. Transit of clean oil from Russia to Belarus resumed in May.

On June 19, another source of oil pollution was detected in the pipeline section that goes from Belarus to Poland. Oil pumping at the site, which is controlled by the Polish operator PERN, was suspended and resumed on June 20.

Minsk and Moscow agreed on a set of measures to displace Russian oil of low quality from the territory of Belarus, as well as on additional supplies of raw materials to Belarusian refineries. According to the Belneftekhim concern, it was planned to completely clean the Belarusian section of contaminated oil by mid-August.