BERLIN — A major Hungarian oil conglomerate said Wednesday that Russian oil pipeline operators will pay outstanding bills owed to Ukrainian authorities, paving the way for Russian oil deliveries to resume to three central European countries. rice field.
Analysts described the financial arrangement as an unexpected boomerang effect of sanctions imposed on Moscow.
Conglomerate MOL Group, which manages the Hungarian division of the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline, said Wednesday it had “transferred royalties for the Ukrainian section of the pipeline.”
Ukraine has promised to resume Russian oil supplies to Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic “within a few days,” MOL said.
Authorities in those three countries said on Tuesday they had banned Russia from the pipeline, citing “technical” banking problems related to sanctions imposed on Russia by Europe to punish Russia for invading Ukraine in February. said its oil deliveries had stopped last week.
Vitaly Yermakov, Senior Research Fellow at Oxford Energy, said in an email: “This is another ‘friendly fire’ with sanctions hitting some European countries, in this case Hungary. It seems like an example. “Sanctions on economic activity are blunt instruments with unintended consequences.”
The three countries, led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, have lobbied to ship oil by pipeline rather than tankers to be exempt from the EU’s decision to start a ban on imports of Russian oil later this year.
All three countries rely heavily on Russian oil to support their economies, but none better than Hungary. MOL, one of his largest and most profitable companies in the country, announced in April it would pay out his $652 million dividend to shareholders.
Orban’s Fidesz party won a landslide election victory in April, promising Russia’s cheap energy would not cause gas and utility bills to skyrocket like elsewhere in Europe. rice field. This month, however, Orban’s government was forced to scrap electricity price caps for heavy-use households as energy prices continued to rise.
Hungary, along with Slovakia and the Czech Republic, is located at the southern end of the Druzhba Pipeline. Yermakov said there were no viable alternatives to Russian oil in the short term.
Germany and Poland, at the northern end of the pipeline, have stopped buying Russian crude, instead buying it from other providers and shipping it to ports on the north coast.
A tanker carrying US sour crude, which is similar in grade to Russian oil coming through the Druzhba pipeline, arrived at the German port of Rostock last week. Reuters reportedciting analyst and vessel tracking data.
The oil terminal at Rostock on the Baltic Sea is connected by pipelines to two major refineries in eastern Germany, the PCK refineries in Schwedt and Leuna, both of which depended on Russia for deliveries until the start of the war. was
Benjamin Novak Contributed a report from Budapest.
