Ukraine may increase transit of Russian oil :: Charter'97 :: News

Ukraine counts to increase transit of Russian oil without binding to "the Belarussian situation", adviser to Chairman of board of the public joint-stock company UkrTransNafta Oleksandr Dykusarov said. According to him, the parties are negotiating on increasing volumes of transit up to12 million tons a year.

According to an additional agreement to the November 16, 2004 treaty, signed on December 26, 2006, UkrTransNafta, TransNeft and TNK-BP agreed upon pumping at least nine million tons of oil annually via the "Odesa-Brody" oil pipeline in the direction of Mozyr-Brody-marine oil terminal "Southern" by 2010. This route has become an alternative to the Samotlor-Novorossiisk route, through which basic volumes of Russian oil had been pumped earlier. The new Samotlor-Mozyr-Brody-"Southern" marine oil terminal has become more economically profitably by USD 0.05 per one ton per 100 km.

As it is known, on January 7/January 8 night supply of Russian oil via the "Druzhba" oil pipeline to Poland, Germany and Ukraine via Belarus was discontinued. Oil supply from Russia to Belarus was relieved of export duty. On January 1, 2007 Moscow imposed duty of 180.7 USD per ton of oil. On January 3 it became clear that Belarus imposed a 45 USD/t duty on transportation of Russian oil via its territory.

The single system of mainline oil pipelines "Druzhba" is the world`s biggest oil pipeline, built in the Soviet time to transport oil from Siberia to Eastern and Western Europe. Its general length is 5,200 km. The oil pipeline runs from Almetyevsk through Samara, Bryansk to Mozyr and then divides into two sections: the northern (through the territory of Belarus, Poland and Germany) and southern (through Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary). The Russian section of the pipeline is run by TransNeft, the Slovak section by TransPetrol and the Ukrainian section by UkrTransNafta, “Cabinet press office” informs.