Russia has stopped the supply of oil to Poland through a pipeline. CEO Daniel Obajtek of the Polish oil group PKN Orlen said this on Twitter. However, his company still has a contract with one Russian oil supplier to receive oil through the Druzhba pipeline until the end of this year.
According to Ojbatek, Polish customers will not notice the Russian step. This is because the country only accounts for one-tenth of Poland’s oil supply. And PKN Orlen was already prepared for the possibility that Russia would turn off the oil tap, says Ojbatek, who says his company can also be supplied entirely by sea.
The European Union has banned importing Russian oil because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but that only applies to oil brought in by tankers. An exception has been made for oil via a pipeline, mainly to get Hungary behind the plans. That country, whose government has close ties with Russia, depends on pipelines from Russia for much of its oil imports.
The Druzhba pipeline, the Russian word for friendship, runs through two branches from Russia to Germany, Poland, Belarus, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Austria. The use of the pipeline has fallen sharply because many countries wanted to reduce their dependence on that country due to the Russian invasion.
