Page 12 - FSUOGM Week 12 2023

FSUOGM PROJECTS & COMPANIES FSUOGM

Slovak refinery Slovnaft begins

processing oil from Azerbaijan

AZERBAIJAN SLOVAKIA’S refinery Slovnfat, which is part The oil from Azerbaijan was brought to
of the Hungarian giant MOL oil group, has Omisalj port in Croatia by the Seavelvet tanker
The MOL unit is begun to process oil from Azerbaijan in an on Friday, March 17, and 90,000 tonnes of oil is
looking to decrease oil effort to decrease its dependency on Russian now pumped to Slovakia’s capital Bratislava via
dependency on Russia. oil imports sanctioned by the EU. the Adria pipeline.
Slovakia, together with Czechia and Hun- RTVS reported that it takes 10 days for the
gary, has been temporarily exempted from oil to travel from Omisalj to Bratislava. To
an EU embargo on the imports of Russian oil maintain its dominant position in the market
due to their high dependency on the imports without Russian oil imports, Slovnaft would
and has been working on replacing Russian need a tanker like Seavelvet coming to Omisalj
oil coming from the Druzhba [Friendship] every five days. Currently, Slovnaft has under
pipeline during the exemption window. Since contract only two tankers a month for the next
February 5, Slovnaft can export processed three months and is negotiating to prolong
products from Russian oil only to Czechia and the contract. The Ministry of Economy is tak-
only until the end of 2023. ing part in the negotiations. Slovnaft exports
“Since November, we have been buying primarily to the Austrian, Czech and Polish
crude of non-Russian origin,” Slovnaft’s Exec- markets.
utive Director Marek Senkovic was quoted as Czechia is set to be independent of the
saying by the Slovak public broadcaster RTVS. Russian oil and Druzhba pipeline imports by
Azerbaijan has been Slovnaft’s fourth import 2025 following the intensification of the TAL
country since then, after “we have been buying pipeline, which runs from Trieste in Italy to
it from [Saudi] Arabia, Iraq and Kazakhstan”, Bavaria in Germany, and to which Czechia is
Senkovic added. connected by the IKL pipeline. ™

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