Transneft is awaiting more clarity on the planned supplies of Kazakh oil via the Druzhba main oil pipeline to Germany.
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"The matter is still unspecific, so I would prefer not to comment," Transneft president Nikolai Tokarev told Interfax in response to a request to comment on the delay in shipping the first consignment that had been planned for February, and its possible postponement to March.
"We'll have an understanding as soon as there is more clarity," Tokarev said.
Director of the KazTransOil national company's PR and internal communications department Shyngys Ilyasov said earlier that a first 20,000 tonnes of Kazakh oil due to be sent to Germany in February had not yet been shipped.
Kazakh Deputy Energy Minister Askhat Khasenov said last week that commercial negotiations between the supplier and the buyer were ongoing.
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.
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.
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. ■