First batch of Kazakh oil yet to be shipped to Germany via Druzhba pipeline - KazTransOil

ASTANA. Feb 21 (Interfax) - The first batch of 20,000 tonnes of Kazakh oil due to be sent to Germany in February has not yet been shipped, director of the KazTransOil national company's PR and internal communications department Shyngys Ilyasov told Interfax.

"As of today, a shipment of Kazakh oil via the Druzhba oil pipeline to the Adamova Zastava oil transfer station for further delivery to Germany has not been carried out," Ilyasov said.

The company has not said when this oil batch could be supplied.

The press service for the Kazakh Energy Ministry has not commented on a timeline for the start of oil exports to Germany either.

Kazakh Deputy Energy Minister Askhat Khasenov said last week that Kazakhstan had yet to ship 20,000 tonnes of oil via the Druzhba pipeline to Germany with commercial negotiations between the supplier and the buyer ongoing.

As reported, Kazakhstan was due to ship a first 20,000 tonnes of oil through the Druzhba pipeline to Germany in the first half of February; previously it had planned to ship the oil by the end January. The company said that it is "technically possible" to transport 300,000 tonnes of Kazakh oil to Germany in February 2023, but "the actual volumes of oil shipments depend on freight shippers' bids."

It was also reported that as Europe plans to reduce its dependence on Russian oil, the European players turned to Kazakhstan for oil supplies. Russia granted Kazakhstan permission to transport oil through the Druzhba pipeline to Germany. KazTransOil planned to supply 300,000 tonnes of Kazakh oil to Germany in Q1 2023. Kazakh Energy Minister Bolat Akchulakov said earlier that Kazakhstan would export 1.5 million tonnes of oil to Germany in 2023 and might boost exports to 7 million tonnes in the future.

KazMunayGas CEO Magzum Mirzagaliyev said that Kazakh oil is to be supplied to the refinery in the city of Schwedt that had been owned by Rosneft. However, in September 2022, Germany's Federal Network Agency took control of the refinery. Rosneft Deutschland, a subsidiary of Rosneft, holds about 12% stake in German refining capacity and is one of the largest fuel market players in the country. The capacity of the Schwedt refinery is 11.6 million tonnes of oil products per year. Starting from the design stage, the plant has historically been linked with the Druzhba oil pipeline and Russian oil fields.