Ukraine has blocked Russian oil supplies to Viktor Orban’s Hungary and Robert Fico’s Slovakia, Vladimir Putin’s two main allies in the European Union. Kiev has sanctioned the Russian company Lukoil, which supplies Budapest and Bratislava through the Druzhba pipeline, the main artery for transporting oil from the federation and Kazakhstan to Europe through Ukraine.
Now Hungary and Slovakia have asked the European Commission for help, asking it to open a consultation procedure with Kiev. The two countries are trying to increase pressure on Volodymyr Zelensky’s country after last week they claimed to have stopped receiving oil from Lukoil via Ukraine.
Hungarian imports
Hungary receives 2 million tons of oil from the Russian Lukoil group every year, about a third of its total imports, Peter Szijjarto said. “I spoke to the Ukrainian foreign minister. And he said that they allow any transfer of oil, but that is not true,” Szijjarto told reporters on the sidelines of the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels. If the Commission’s consultation procedure fails, Hungary and Slovakia will take the issue to an international court.
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“The oil volumes in July are the same as in previous periods. There are no Lukoil volumes, but the volumes are the same,” said Oleksiy Chernyshov, the CEO of Naftogaz, Ukraine’s national oil and gas company. Lukoil’s supplies through the southern branch of the Druzhba pipeline account for about 50 percent of its flows, and Mol’s refineries in Slovakia and Hungary are entirely dependent on Lukoil shipments.
Pipeline Excluded from Sanctions
The Druzhba pipeline, nicknamed the Friendship Pipeline, is the longest oil pipeline in the world, transporting Ural oil about 4,000 kilometers from Russia through Ukraine directly to refineries in Poland, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Druzhba pumps between 750,000 and 800,000 barrels of crude oil per day and has a capacity of up to 1.4 million barrels per day. The name comes from the fact that the pipeline supplied oil to the hydrocarbon-poor western regions of the Soviet Union and the countries of the former Soviet bloc.
After the EU decided to impose an embargo on Russian oil imports by sea, as a consequence of the invasion of Ukraine, Hungary and other landlocked countries were allowed to continue buying crude oil through this pipeline at least until December 2024. But now Kiev, perhaps also as a consequence of Orban’s “peace” missions in Russia and China, has decided to tighten the screws.
The alternatives
In an effort to sell off oil not shipped to Hungary and Slovakia, Lukoil has added about 140,000 tonnes of crude to its plan to increase exports from the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk. The second largest supplier through the Druzhba pipeline is Tatneft, which also supplies oil to Mol, while Gazprom Neft, Russneft and several smaller independent producers supply the rest. Hungary can also import oil from the Croatian seaport of Omisalj through the Adria pipeline, while Slovakia can only get oil through Hungary.
