Russia has been cutting down crude shipments to Germany via Druzhba pipelines for a few months running.
Photo: Nikita Infantyev
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Russia’s Crude Drained Away from German Refineries
Russia has been cutting down crude shipments to Germany via Druzhba pipelines for a few months running. Sources with LUKOIL acknowledged the decline Friday, blaming it on worsened economic effect of such deliveries, including the decision of Belarus to hike transit prices by 30 percent. LUKOIL will probably attempt to use it as an argument to pressurize in talks for acquiring refineries in Europe.
”LUKOIL has cut down shipments by roughly a third in July and August,” Transneft Vice President Sergey Grigoriev said Friday after Germany’s Schwedt refinery reported the decline in Druzhba deliveries via The Financial Times.
LUKOIL didn’t comment on the information, but some sources with the company said the talks with buyers are underway and the results could be announced in the near term. At the same time, another reason of decline could be the worsened economic effect of the shipments to Germany, including because of Belarus’ decision to hike the price for crude transit via its territory, Interfax reported with reference to anonymous source. The growth in transit tariff rates was 30 percent.
According to Argus, the exports of Russia’s crude to Germany shed 21 percent in June and lost another 2 percent to 1.44 million tons in July.
The analysts say one of the reasons could be LUKOIL’s desire to acquire refineries in Europe. The efficiency of deliveries will notably step up once it becomes an owner of some enterprise. Another explanation is the general trend of Russia’s exporters to redirect crude shipments from pipelines to sea ports.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 27, 2007
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