The Hungarian oil and gas company MOL has started negotiations on a new scheme for transporting Russian oil through Ukraine, and it will independently take responsibility for this process. The change in the supply scheme became necessary after Ukrainian authorities banned MOL’s main partner, the Russian company Lukoil, from using pipelines passing through Ukrainian territory.
Discussions on an alternative route are ongoing, and an agreement is expected to be reached soon. The new scheme will cost more and will be accompanied by increased risk. As well, Ukraine has extended its sanctions against Russian Lukoil, which stopped transporting oil through the Druzhba oil pipeline, which supplied raw materials to Hungarian and Slovak MOL refineries.
In particular, the plant in Sazkhalobat received about two million tons of oil annually, and the Slovnaft plant in Bratislava received 2.5 million tons, 40% of the total volume of oil supplied to MOL.