Page 4 - bneMag Oct23

4 I Companies & Markets bne October 2023
Inflation rates are falling across CEE, leading economists to predict rate cuts in the coming months. / bne IntelliNews
Czech oil imports from Russia rose to a decade high in 1H23
Albin Sybera
The share of Russian oil imported by the Druzhba [Friendship] pipeline to Czechia this year rose to 65%. Last year, the share was 56%, while it was even lower in the years before, the Czech Press Agency (CTK) reported, quoting Czech state-controlled oil transporting and storage company Mero. The share of Russian crude oil imports into Czechia is the highest since 2012.
Czechia has been exempted from the EU-wide embargo on Russian oil due to its high dependency on Russian imports. Besides the Druzhba pipeline, Czechia imports oil from
the TAL pipeline running from the Italian port of Trieste to Austria and Germany, where Czechia is connected to it with its IKL pipeline.
The Ministry of Trade and Industry told CTK that Unipetrol, a Czech branch of the Polish PKN Orlen, carries out oil imports, and the IKL pipeline’s full capacities prevent further imports from IKL.
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“TAL pipeline has free capacities only in the first months of the year and then from October onwards,” Marek Vosahlik of the ministry’s press department was quoted as saying by CTK.
In May, Mero signed an agreement with TAL shareholders
to intensify the pipeline in a CZK1.6bn (€67.5mn) TAL-PLUS intensification project, which will increase the pipeline’s transporting capacity to Czechia by 4 million tonnes of oil annually.
With TAL-PLUS in operation, the country will secure 8 million tonnes of oil annually and will be able to stop imports of Russian oil. “With this crucial step, we will get rid of the dependency on Russian oil,” Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala stated in May following the signing of an agreement between Mero and TAL shareholders.
Some 7.4 million tonnes of oil were imported to Czechia in 2022, which is a 7% increase year-on-year, and 56% of it came from Russia.