ST. PETERSBURG, October 10. /TASS/. Oil supplies by Russian oil major Lukoil to Hungary have resumed under amended contracts, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told reporters on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Gas Forum.
When asked of Lukoil oil deliveries had resumed in October he replied: "Yes, they have resumed. We have modified the contract of supply, which means that we take over the at Belarus-Ukraine border," he explained.
Szijjarto noted that Hungary is now bearing additional risks and costs for receiving Russian oil due to Ukraine's unfriendly steps.
"So far, we have taken over the oil at the Hungary-Ukrainian border, from now we have to take over at the Ukraine-Belarus border, which puts more financial burden on use, more risk on us. But because of the unfriendly step of the Ukrainian counterparts and no action on behalf of the European Commission we had to do it," he said.
Szijjarto noted that the European Commission did not help his country in any way in the situation of the interruption of supplies.
"The European Commission did not absolutely help us. It is absolutely unacceptable for a candidate country to play games with safe supply of energy to two members of the European Union. The job of the European Commission should have been to help the member states to secure its safe energy supplies. What happened is that Ukraine has made a unilateral move without any notification to Hungary, they have cut third of our oil imports and we had to modify our contracts with the Russian suppliers, to change the point of take over," he noted.
"And what was the reaction from Brussels? [They said that] it is not a problem for you. That is unacceptable," Szijjarto said.
On the situation with oil supplies
On July 17, Ukraine stopped the transit of Lukoil oil via the Druzhba pipeline through its territory to Hungary and Slovakia after the Russian company was blacklisted by Kiev.
In early September, the Hungarian energy concern MOL reported that it had agreed to supply Russian oil via Druzhba to Hungary and Slovakia in accordance with the current EU and Ukrainian sanctions. MOL has concluded agreements with oil suppliers and pipeline operators for supplies, purchasing the corresponding volumes of oil from Russia at the Belarusian-Ukrainian border.