Slovakia, following Hungary, stopped receiving LUKOIL oil

Transpetrol, the operator of the Slovak section of the Druzhba oil pipeline, has stopped receiving oil from LUKOIL, reports SITA.sk.

In June this year, Ukraine expanded sanctions against the Russian company by banning oil transit . The restrictions do not apply to supplies from other Russian exporters, SITA notes.

“Oil deliveries from other Russian exporters, which are not included in the expanded Ukrainian sanctions list, are accepted from the Ukrainian carrier for transportation across the territory of the Slovak Republic and are then transferred to our customers in accordance with the schedule,” the operator explained.

RBC contacted the LUKOIL press service for comment.

The day before, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó, after a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in New York on the sidelines of a UN Security Council meeting, said that Kyiv had stopped the transportation of LUKOIL oil to Hungary due to tougher sanctions. According to him, the Hungarian Mol Nyrt and the Russian company are “working on a legal solution.” “There is a legal situation in Ukraine due to which LUKOIL currently does not supply to Hungary,” Szijjártó said, as quoted by Bloomberg .

Through the Druzhba oil pipeline, Russian oil flows to the Belarusian Mozyr, and then is divided into two branches - northern (through Belarus and Poland to Germany) and southern (through Ukraine, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary). In December 2022, the EU banned the transportation of Russian oil by sea, and then petroleum products. An exception was then made for “Friendship”. However, in June last year, the European Union banned the transportation of oil along the northern branch of the pipeline as part of the 11th package of sanctions against Russia.