The Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline, which takes the “black gold” from Russia to Belarus, has been blocked for at least 8 days, the reason being a chemical agent harmful for the pipe equipment. This is a serious blow to the economy of Belarus, where refining and further resale of Russian oil is one of the main sources of income.
Belarusian oil products are very popular on the Polish market. For example, 13% of diesel fuel here is of Belarusian origin. However, as a result of the accident on the Druzhba pipeline, the flow of oil products to Poland stopped.
In addition to Poland, Belneftekhim stopped supplying gasoline and diesel fuel to Ukraine and the Baltic countries.
“If the processing volume decreases, the export volume decreases accordingly. As the Belneftekhim concern and the Deputy Prime Minister stated earlier, export volumes are being reduced in order to secure the domestic market of the Republic of Belarus,” said the Belarusian Oil Company.
The refineries have reduced production by half, since they cannot use the Druzhba pipeline. It received organochloride in large quantities. This agent contaminated the pipe at a length of 1,400 kilometers.
“This substance is used to reduce the amount of sulfur compounds in the oil. However, if there is too much of it, it can corrode the mechanisms and cause the infrastructure to fail. At a certain point, it turned out that Russian oil contains 10 times more of organo-chloride than it should,” says Wojciech Jakubik from portal BIZNESALERT.PL.
It will take about 10 days before the polluted oil is pumped through the territory of Belarus and “Druzhba” can again be used, the Belarusian Oil Company said.
“Transneft” states that they are ready to eliminate the consequences within 8-10 days, and everything will be fine. Up to this point, everything looks like a conflict between two economic entities. On the one hand — there is a recipient of oil. On the other — the sender. They must come to an agreement, and Transneft will most likely have to compensate for the losses,” says economic analyst Mikhail Krutikhin.
Losses can be measured in hundreds of millions of dollars. The Ukrainian and Polish markets for Belarusian refineries are among the most profitable.
The shutdown of the oil pipeline can be both an accident and a malicious action, says Kyiv political analyst Ihar Tyshkevich.
“Together with supplying poor-quality oil to Belarus, Russia actually delivered an ultimatum to Ukraine, banning the supply of oil and oil products to this country from June 1. This, it can be said, is a challenge to the new president Zelenskiy. Why is this serious? If you take the fuel market of Ukraine, 40 percent of diesel fuel supply comes from Russia, and 37 percent of it comes from Belarus,” the expert stressed.
Meanwhile, the Belarusian Oil Company has already announced that by the end of the year it is ready to establish oil imports, alternative to Russia, through the ports of the Baltic countries or Ukraine.
Alyaksandr Papko, belsat.eu
