Romanian Energy Ministry declares crisis-level emergency over July contaminated oil incident

MOSCOW. Aug 5 (Interfax) - The Romanian Energy Ministry has declared a crisis-level state of emergency to allow OMV Petrom (controlled by Austrian oil company OMV) to access emergency oil reserves following supply disruptions caused by detected organic chloride contamination.

"On July 16-18, OMV Petrom SA received a shipment of Azerbaijani oil (92,000 tonnes) loaded at Ceyhan port (Turkey). Upon repeated testing and during unloading, this batch was found contaminated with organic chlorides present at the loading port. In addition, after conducting tests, Petrom decided to reject another 92,000-tonne shipment. Thus, 184,000 tonnes of imported oil became unavailable for delivery to the Petrobrazi refinery," the ministry said.

Consequently, OMV Petrom requested temporary release of 80,000 tonnes of oil and 30,000 tonnes of diesel from strategic reserves to ensure uninterrupted operation of the Petrobrazi refinery and maintain balance on the national oil products market.

"The request was necessitated by other refineries' inability to process contaminated volumes, along with contamination and subsequent blocking of primary international oil import sources. These circumstances revealed a localized crisis situation caused by severe oil supply disruptions. Release of emergency reserves can only be authorized following declaration of crisis-level emergency, with prior notification to the European Commission," the Energy Ministry said.

In July, several media outlets citing sources reported excessive organic chloride content - substances used to boost extraction volumes - in certain Azerbaijani oil shipments. On July 24, BP in Azerbaijan said that quality checks at all facilities along the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline confirmed the crude met specification requirements.

Organic chlorides were detected in some storage tanks at the Ceyhan port terminal in Turkey.