As of January, Germany no longer wants to purchase pipeline oil from Russia. Kazakhstan, among others, is to step in as a replacement, but the pipeline infrastructure is missing. But the Russian leadership has nothing against using its “Druzhba” tube for the transport.
Russia says it will allow Kazakhstan to use the Druzhba pipeline to deliver oil to Germany. According to the Interfax news agency, Russia’s energy minister Alexander Novak told journalists in Moscow that the Kazakh application would be approved. “We are normal about it. And if part of the Kazakh oil from Ust-Luga is diverted to the ‘Druzhba’, then that is normal.”
After the Russian attack on Ukraine, Europe wants to cut ties with Russian energy supplies. For this reason, Germany and Poland have announced that they will stop using Russian pipeline oil from January. Part of the supplies are to be replaced with Kazakh oil. Specifically, the current project is about 20,000 tons of oil from the Kazakh oil field Karachaganak.
The Kazakh oil is intended for the Schwedt refinery in north-eastern Brandenburg, which was previously supplied with Russian oil from the state-owned company Rosneft via the “Druschba” pipeline. Until recently, Rosneft held a majority stake in the refinery, although it is under German trusteeship.
According to the report, the Kazakh pipeline company Kaztransoil has already submitted an application to ship 1.2 million tons of oil to Germany next year. The resource-rich country is located in Central Asia. To get oil to Europe, it must either use Russia’s pipeline infrastructure or ship the raw material by sea across the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan, where it can be piped to Turkey or the Black Sea coast of Georgia.
The “Druschba” leads from Russia via Poland to Schwedt. The pipeline has a transport capacity of 2.5 million barrels of oil per day. In order to compensate for the loss of Russian deliveries, Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck signed a declaration of intent with the Polish government at the beginning of December: Crude oil is also to be routed to the PCK refinery via the pipeline system in the port of Gdansk. Concrete steps have not yet been negotiated.
