MOSCOW (Reuters) – Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday the disruption of Russian crude shipments through Ukraine was a “crisis” for affected oil buyers, but said the decision was political and left little room for discussion with Ukrainian shipping companies.
Slovakia and Hungary said they had cut off crude oil deliveries from Russia’s Lukoil, their main supplier, after Ukraine last month banned Russian energy company Lukoil from shipping resources through their territory.
Russia continues to supply natural gas and oil to Europe through Ukraine despite the war in Ukraine, in what Moscow calls a special military operation.
Hungarian energy company MOL owns refineries in landlocked Hungary and Slovakia, both of which are supplied with oil through the southern branch of the Druzhba Pipeline.
“I don’t see any opportunity for contact with Ukrainian companies providing transport services. The decision was made at a political, not technical, level,” Peskov said in a regular conference call with reporters.
“We are not having a dialogue here. So yes the situation is very critical for us (the oil) host countries, but it’s not up to us,” he added.
The southern branch of the Druzhba Pipeline runs through Ukraine to the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary and has been the main supply to those countries’ refineries for many years. Rosneft, Lukoil and Tatneft are the main Russian exporters via this route.
Urals crude oil supplies to Slovakia via Russia’s Druzhba pipeline are falling far short of planned levels, two sources familiar with the data told Reuters on Thursday.
Oil supplies through the pipeline to the Czech Republic continue as normal, but supplies to Hungary are slightly below planned levels, they said.
(Editing by Dmitry Antonov, Vladimir Soldatkin and Andrew Osborne)
