The cleansing of the Polish oil transfer system from polluted oil arriving in Poland this spring will go into 2020, said Igor Vasilevsky, the head of the company operator of the Polish section of the Druzhba PERN oil pipeline on Wednesday, Eurasia Diary reports citing TASS.
"Polish and German refineries have their own production systems. They respond restraintly to our requests to collect more contaminated oil. They are based on our supplies, and we must constantly sell them. There are storage facilities with and without contaminated oil. Companies decide which ones to take from," said Vasilevsky, emphasizing that the refinery has high quality requirements. "With this development of events, we will process contaminated oil for the whole of 2020. It all depends on customers," he said.
Transneft announced that the full amount of compensation will be known in 2020, because its storage facilities are also contaminated with chlorine. On the other hand, refineries will not be able to name the final amount until all contaminated oil is processed. Today, any calculations involve the risk of error. After processing the last batch, it will be known what needs to be replaced and what needs to be repaired. We expect a long conversation with the Russians," said he.
The Druzhba oil pipeline provides oil supplies to Belarusian refineries and its transit to Europe. The oil pollution in Druzhba organochlorine, detected in April, led to the suspension of pumping of Russian oil to Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Hungary and Slovakia.
Each year, PERN, which operates as the operator of the Polish section of the pipeline, pumps about 50 million tons of oil from Russia into the national system, managing a 2.6 thousand km oil pipeline network, and also has storage facilities with a volume of 3.5 million cubic meters and an oil port in Gdansk with a capacity of 40 million tons of oil per year. PERN supplies two refineries in Poland - in Plock (Orlen) and Gdansk (Lotos), as well as two refineries in Germany - in the areas of Schwedt and Spergau.
The Druzhba oil pipeline supplies oil to Belarusian refineries and provides its transit to Europe.
PERN pumps around 50 mln tonnes of oil from Russia to the national system annually, managing a chain of oil pipelines stretching 2,600 kilometers. It supplies two refineries in Poland - Orlan in Plock and Lotos in Gdansk, as well as to two refineries in Germany - in Schwedt and Spergau.
In mid-April, Belneftekhim reported a sharp deterioration in the quality of the Russian oil running through the pipeline. As a result, several states stopped receiving and refining the Russian oil.
Poland suspended the pumping on April 24. Oil supplies to the republic via Druzhba were halted for 46 days. On June 9, supplies were resumed.
