Minister: Hungary carves pipeline oil out of oil price cap

BUDAPEST/MOSCOW, Oct 5 (PRIME) -- Hungary has managed to agree with the E.U. that Russian pipeline oil supplies and emergency seaborne supplies that may replace pipeline oil will not fall under the oil price cap, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Wednesday.

“We have been negotiating hard and have achieved that the oil price restriction does not apply to pipeline oil supplies, the route we use to buy oil necessary for our energy security, and in case of emergency it will also not cover the sea transport that would replace pipelines,” he said.

The country also managed to exclude the nuclear power sector from the E.U. sanctions, so that they will not hit construction of new reactors of the Paks nuclear power plant. Hungary plans to continue standing for its own energy security and fighting against the sanctions that would hurt the country, Szijjarto said.

On Tuesday, newswire Politico reported that the E.U. permanent representatives have reached a framework agreement on the eighth round of anti-Russian sanctions, including the oil price cap, and that a final edition of the sanctions should be coordinated on Wednesday. The Wall Street Journal reported that the oil price cap would be introduced in two stages.

At the beginning of September, the finance ministers of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations confirmed the intent to cap the price for Russian oil with the cap for the oil prices to be introduced on December 5 and the cap for oil product prices on February 5, 2023.

Russian officials responded with a warning that all the countries that would introduce the caps would find themselves without Russian oil exports.

End