According to Reuters, Russia has warned Kazakhstan about a possible suspension of its oil transit to Germany. The Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan has dismissed this information.
On April 25, the Reuters news agency reported from its sources that Transneft, the Russian pipeline company, notified Kazakhstani authorities about its intention to suspend Kazakhstani oil transit to Germany starting from June due to delays in payment by PERN, the national pipeline company in Poland.
«KazTransOil and KazMunayGas are nervous,» said one of the news agency’s sources familiar with the matter.
However, the Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan has refuted this information.
«This information hasn’t been confirmed,» the agency emphasized.
Russian Transneft runs Druzhba, one of the longest oil pipelines in the world, capable of transporting two million barrels of oil per day. After the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the volume of oil going through the pipeline has sharply declined as the European Union refused to acquire Russian oil. Kazakhstan is relying on the northern string of the pipeline to export its oil to Germany.
At the end of 2022, KazTransOil negotiated with Transneft to export 1.2 million tons of Kazakhstani oil to Germany. Although this export was supposed to start in January 2023, it actually started in February. According to Energy Minister of Kazakhstan Almasadam Satkaliyev, Germany is interested in boosting its import of Kazakhstani oil through Druzhba to 200,000 tons per month.
