BERLIN — Hungary’s predominant oil conglomerate stated on Wednesday that it might pay an excellent invoice owed by Russia’s oil pipeline operator to the Ukrainian authorities, clearing the best way for Russian oil deliveries to renew to a few Central European nations.
Analysts described the monetary association as an surprising boomerang impact of sanctions imposed on Moscow.
The conglomerate, MOL Group, an administrator of the Hungarian arm of the Druzhba, or Friendship, pipeline, stated on Wednesday that it had “transferred the fee due for the use of the Ukrainian section of the pipeline.”
Ukraine pledged to renew deliveries of Russian crude to the three nations, Hungary, Slovakia and Czech Republic, “within a matter of days,” MOL stated.
The authorities in these three nations stated on Tuesday that Russian oil deliveries from the pipeline had stopped final week over “technical” banking points linked to the sanctions that Europe had imposed on Russia to punish it for invading Ukraine in February.
“This seems to be just another example of the ‘friendly fire’ from the sanctions that is going to hurt some European countries, in this case Hungary,” Vitaly Yermakov, a senior analysis fellow with Oxford Energy, stated in an e mail. “Sanctioning economic activity is a blunt weapon that can have unintended consequences.”
Led by Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, the three nations had lobbied for oil delivered by pipeline, versus by tankers, to be exempted from a European Union determination to begin banning imports of Russian oil later this 12 months.
All three rely closely on Russian oil to gasoline their economies, however none extra so than Hungary. MOL, which is likely one of the nation’s greatest and most worthwhile corporations, introduced in April that it might pay dividends of $652 million to shareholders.
Mr. Orban’s Fidesz social gathering gained a landslide victory in April elections on the promise that, due to low cost vitality from Russia, gasoline and utility costs wouldn’t skyrocket as they’d elsewhere in Europe. But this month, Mr. Orban’s authorities was pressured to scrap a value cap on energy for higher-use households, as the value of vitality continued to climb.
Hungary, together with Slovakia and Czech Republic, sits on the finish of the southern arm of the Druzhba pipeline. Mr. Yermakov stated they’d no viable alternate options to Russian oil within the brief time period.
Germany and Poland, on the northern finish of the pipeline, have stopped buying Russian crude and as an alternative have begun shopping for it from different suppliers and having it shipped to ports on their northern coasts.
A tanker carrying a cargo of U.S. bitter crude, which has similarities in grade to the Russian oil delivered by means of the Druzhba pipeline, arrived on the German port of Rostock final week, Reuters reported, citing analyst and vessel monitoring knowledge.
A pipeline connects Rostock’s oil terminal on the Baltic Sea to the 2 predominant refineries in jap Germany, PCK refinery in Schwedt and Leuna, each of which trusted Russia for deliveries till the beginning of the conflict.
Benjamin Novak contributed reporting from Budapest.