Head of Poland's Orlen announces end of Russian oil deliveries to Poland

MOSCOW. Feb 27 (Interfax) - Russia has stopped supplying oil via pipeline to Poland, PKN Orlen Management Board President and CEO Daniel Obajtek announced on social media.

"We are effectively guaranteeing our crude oil supplies. Russia has stopped supplying oil to Poland, which is something for which we are totally prepared. Only 10% of our crude oil was coming from Russia, and we will replace it with oil from other sources. This is the result of the diversification we have carried out over the past few years," he said.

Orlen, following the expiration of its contract with Rosneft which was for 3.6 million tonnes of oil per year, reduced the share of Russian crude oil it refines to 10%, it had been reported earlier.

As part of its strategic diversification, Orlen reconstituted its import portfolio on the basis of oil supplies from the North Sea, West Africa, the Mediterranean basin and both the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Mexico. Its principle partner is now Saudi Aramco, with whom it signed an oil supply contract in November for "an amount sufficient to cover the general needs of all our refinery groups," the report said. Volumes range from 200,000 to 337,000 bpd.

Today, the only remaining active contract for oil supply from Russia is with Tatneft .

In addition, last week, Transneft received a request from Poland to pump oil from Kazakhstan via the Druzhba pipeline in Q2 of this year, the company's president Nikolai Tokarev said.