http://www.portfolio.hu/en/cikkek.tdp?k=2&i=18700

October 14, 2009, 12:24 pm

Crude oil flow from Russia via Ukraine to Hungary has stopped on Wednesday. According to Portfolio.hu’s information, the disruption is attributable to a power outage in Ukraine. There is no danger that MOL’s refineries will be left without oil supply.

Oil transmission through the Druzhba pipeline to Europe has stopped due to power outage in western Ukraine

Russian oil pipeline monopoly Transneft said the outage could affect crude supplies to Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic but that it hoped flows would resume within a day.

"Our Ukrainian colleagues promised us they would resolve the failure within 24 hours," Reuters cited Transneft spokesman Igor Dyomin as saying

The Lviv branch of Ukraine's Emergencies Ministry said on its website that the supplies had been suspended because of localised power cuts due to bad weather.

The pipeline pumps more than 1.2 million barrels of crude a day into Europe. Flows of up to about 600,000 barrels per day to Hungary, Slovakia and Czech Republic could be cut due to the accident in Ukraine.

Czech Republic, but it has no impact whatsoever on the operation of MOL refineries. The reason for that is that the refineries have sufficient reserves to manage disruptions such as this. MOL will inform the public about the restart of the Russian crude supply.

Supply to the refineries is safe not only because of the sufficiently large reserves, but also because MOL has domestic crude production (although its volume would not be enough alone). Moreover, Hungary also has strategic oil reserves enough for 90 days.