Druzhba oil flow to Czech Republic seen back Friday as payment issue sorted, sources say

By Marek Strzelecki and Jan Lopatka

WARSAW, Dec 5 (Reuters) – Russian oil flows to the Czech Republic via the Druzhba pipeline were seen resuming on Friday after payment issues linked to the transit via Ukraine, which caused a halt, have been sorted, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.

The stoppage, first confirmed on Tuesday, was reported on Wednesday by Unipetrol, a subsidiary of Poland’s Orlen.

Unipetrol said that refining at the Litvinov refinery, which uses Russian crude, was running using the company’s reserves which could last a week before it taps state reserves. As a contingency measure the Czech government approved lending Unipetrol 330,000 metric tons of oil from state reserves.

Czech pipeline operator MERO and Unipetrol both said they could not confirm the information about the expected resumption of supply.

Rosneft, which supplies Unipetrol had no immediate comment, while Russia’s pipeline operator Transneft did not immediately replied to Reuters questions. Ukrainian pipeline operator Uktransnafta had no immediate comment. (Reporting by Marek Strzelecki and Jan Lopatka; additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk; editing by David Evans)

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