Slovak PM criticizes Kiev for suspending Lukoil's oil transit via Ukraine
MOSCOW. July 22 (Interfax) - Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who had a phone call with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal last Saturday, criticized Kiev's decision to sanction the Russian oil company Lukoil, whose oil was used at the only Slovak oil refinery Slovnaft, Ukrainian media reported with reference to the Slovak news agency TASR citing the Slovak government press service's statement.
"Slovakia is not going to be a hostage to Ukrainian-Russian relations, and the Ukrainian president's decision [on sanctions] means that the Slovak oil refinery Slovnaft, which is part of Hungary's MOL group, will receive 40% less oil than it needs for processing," Fico said.
The situation will not only affect the Slovak market but might also halt shipments to Ukraine of oil produced by Slovnaft, which accounts for nearly 10% of Ukraine's oil consumption, Fico said.
The Slovak government office said the prime minister had been discussing the issue with the relevant government ministers and representatives of the MOL company for several days.
The Ukrainian government did not issue any reports on Prime Minister Shmygal's conversation with his Slovak counterpart on Saturday.
As reported, Hungary and Slovakia said on July 17-18 that they stopped receiving pipeline oil from Lukoil shipped via the Druzhba pipeline over a transit ban imposed by Ukraine after it put Lukoil on its sanction list. At the same time, Slovakia's national transport operator Transpetrol said oil supplies from other Russian exporters were arriving in the country.
The Kremlin described the halt in Russian oil supplies to Hungary and Slovakia via the Druzhba pipeline as a crisis, saying that there was no dialogue with Kiev, which halted oil transportation.
"I don't think that we have a chance to establish contact with Ukrainian companies that provide transit. And besides, the decision was made not at a technical but at a political level, and we have no dialogue there whatsoever," Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov told journalists last Friday, when asked whether Russia would try to unblock oil transport to Slovakia and Hungary via the Druzhba pipeline at the government level after Ukraine's decision to halt it or whether it would help the countries find alternative delivery routes.
"Indeed, the situation is quite critical for our recipients, but this doesn't depend on us in any way," he said.
Kiev tightened sanctions on Lukoil last month, thus effectively banning oil transport to Central Europe across Ukraine via the Druzhba pipeline. Slovakia's Transpetrol said on July 18 that the country stopped receiving pipeline oil from Lukoil because of Ukraine's sanctions. Hungary had also said previously that it was not receiving oil from the Russian oil company. Slovnaft, the only oil refinery in Slovakia capable of processing around 124,000 barrels of oil a day, is owned by Hungary's MOL. Transpetrol said in a statement that oil supplies from other Russian exporters not included in the expanded Ukrainian sanctions list were arriving in the country via Ukraine.
Slovak Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Denisa Sakova said on social media on July 18 that she had discussed the partial oil delivery restrictions due to the sanctions with Ukrainian Ambassador Miroslav Kastran on Thursday. She said she believed the problem could be settled in a mutually favorable way.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto had said earlier that he had discussed uninterrupted oil and gas deliveries from Russia with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. "We're working on developing a legal solution for resuming them via Belarus and Ukraine to Hungary," he said.
Under a contract with MOL valid until 2025, Lukoil is supposed to deliver 4 million tonnes of oil a year to Slovakia.