Russian oil transit through Belarus to fall by 5 mln tonnes in 2012 - Transneft
MINSK. May 4 (Interfax) - Russian oil transit through Belarus will fall by around 5 million tonnes this year, press officer at OJSC Transneft Igor Dyomin told Interfax.
"Oil transit through Belarus will decrease in 2012 due to the withdrawal of volumes that go to Gdansk. That direction will not exist at all this year, since we are rechanneling those volumes to Ust Luga [the Baltic Pipeline System (BPS-2)]," he said.
A maximum of 6 million tonnes of oil are pumped through the Druzhba pipeline system towards Gdansk each year. "Therefore, the drop this year will be around 5 million tonnes," Dyomin said.
The Belarusian operator of Druzhba's southern branch - OJSC Gomeltransneft Druzhba - has forecast a 10-million-tonne reduction in transit volumes because of Russian companies' reorientation towards BPS-2.
"No, there won't be such a critical drop in transit volumes. Only the Gdansk direction is being withdrawn. The situation with deliveries to other countries is normal - oil will flow there without any problems along this route," Dyomin said.
The drop in transit is connected with an insignificant reduction in planned oil deliveries to Germany and Poland, he said. According to Transneft's data, the company originally planned to send 17 million tonnes of oil to Germany (it supplied 19.4 million tonnes in 2011), and 18 million tonnes to Poland (24.5 million tonnes). However, due to the four-month delay in commissioning the BPS-2, these plans underwent some minor changes, Dyomin said.
Gomeltransneft Druzhba has projected that with BPS-2's launch to full capacity, Belarus will lose 10-15 million tonnes of transit oil pumped towards Poland. According to Belarus' calculations, transit flows will already total roughly 50-52 million tonnes this year, versus 60-61 million tonnes last year, given plans to supply the Mozyr Oil Refinery with at least 10.75 million tonnes of Russian oil through the southern branch of the Druzhba pipeline in 2012.
Last year saw minor reductions in transit volumes - 72.3 million tonnes of oil flowed through Belarus, compared to 75.5 million tonnes in 2010, despite the fact that oil supplies for the Mozyr Oil Refinery were practically identical in both years, the Belarusian company said.
The northern and southern branches of the Druzhba oil pipeline pass through Belarus. Along the northern route, operated by OJSC Polotsktransneft Druzhba, oil is supplied only to OJSC Naftan. The operator of the southern section is Gomeltransneft Druzhba, which was auctioned at the end of 2010.
Russian and Kazakh oil is transported through Druzhba's southern branch along to Poland, Germany, Ukraine, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Russian and Belarusian oil is also sent through the southern section to the Mozyr Oil Refinery. Over the past five years, transit volumes have totaled around 75-80 million tonnes per year.
