FILE PHOTO: A model of a pipeline is seen at the main entrance to the Gomel Transneft oil pumping station, which moves crude through the Druzhba pipeline westwards to Europe, near Mozyr some 300 km (185 miles) southeast of Minsk January 8, 2010. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko/File Photo
May 30, 2019
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Transneft has agreed a possible formula for settling compensation claims from Russian oil firms following contamination of the Druzhba (“Friendship”) pipeline, newspaper Kommersant reported citing the vice president of the pipeline operator.
Exports via the pipeline and Russia’s Baltic sea port of Ust-Luga have been halted since last month after high levels of organic chloride were found.
Customers in Belarus, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine have been affected.
“Together with the energy ministry we have studied a question of possible compensation to (Russian) oil suppliers… Almost all Russian suppliers have agreed with the proposal,” Transneft’s Sergei Andronov told the newspaper.
Asked if traders and buyers were ready to buy the tainted oil and at what discount, Andronov told the newspaper: “This is not our question as oil which is transported via the pipelines does not belong to Transneft.”
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin and Katya Golubkova; Editing by Edmund Blair)
