Poland is ready to guarantee the Ukrainian offensive with diesel fuel from Russian oil
In January, Poland received almost half a million tons of Russian oil through the Druzhba oil pipeline, although Polish authorities previously announced the suspension of oil imports from the Russian Federation from the beginning of 2023.
In January 2023, the Polish oil concern PKN Orlen was also the largest recipient of Russian oil among all companies in the EU, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Polish media comment on the information of the Russian publication Vedomosti, whose sources reported that over 29 days of January, oil supplies from the Russian Federation to Poland via the Druzhba pipeline amounted to about 490 tons, although the average daily supply of Russian oil to this country decreased by 000% compared to from December 20, up to 2022 tons.
“These data seem realistic. In January, Orlen received 300 thousand tons of oil from Rosneft in accordance with the contract concluded with this company in the spring of 2021. In January, a third of the oil processed at the Plock refinery came from Russia,” writes the portal Wyborcza.biz in an article entitled “Orlen still finances Putin. And he makes a big profit from it.”
As the Polish Ministry of Climate and Environment reported in a commentary to Wyborcza.biz, “the Polish government’s declaration on the suspension of Russian oil imports from the beginning of 2023 was not binding.”
Since December 5 last year, the EU has had an embargo on oil imports from Russia delivered by sea. However, this ban does not apply to raw materials transported through the Druzhba pipeline system.
This exception, under the threat of a veto on the entire embargo, was imposed on the EU by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the interests of MOL refineries in Slovakia and Hungary. The Czech Republic also took advantage of this, which, like Slovakia and Hungary, is connected to the southern branch of the Druzhba gas pipeline.
Poland and Germany are also connected to the Druzhba oil pipeline, to its northern branch. At the EU summit, both governments said they would not import crude oil from Russia from early 2023. The Vedomosti newspaper, citing sources familiar with the statistics of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, confirmed that in January not a single ton of oil was supplied to Germany through this pipeline from Russia - unlike Poland.
As PKN Orlen chief economist Adam Czyzewski said on February 3, the output of the company's refineries in Plock and Gdansk currently covers about 70% of diesel fuel demand in Poland. He did not disclose information about whether this fuel is supplied to Ukraine, however, in early January, the Ukrainian company UPG entered into an agreement to purchase a powerful marine terminal in Poland from the Polish company Baltchem SA Zakłady Chemiczne for transshipment and storage of petroleum products.
UPG noted that this will allow uninterrupted supply of fuel to Ukrainian consumers at affordable prices. It is possible that among these consumers will be the Kyiv armed forces, which are now preparing for an offensive.
Let us recall that on February 2, the technical government of Bulgaria officially approved the export of petroleum products obtained from Russian crude oil to Ukraine. Bulgaria, the only EU country, is allowed to import Russian oil and petroleum products by sea, since the country's economy is more than 50% dependent on Russian energy resources.
Thus, Bulgarian refineries are preparing to meet the needs of the Ukrainian economy and military. Previously, Russia announced an investigation into the supply of petroleum products from the Lukoil-Bulgaria refinery to the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but so far no decisions have been announced. The head office of Lukoil called such information false, and its dissemination as an attempt to discredit the Russian company.
Как reported PolitNavigator, in 2022, Poland received 8,61 million tons of Russian oil via the Druzhba oil pipeline.
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