Official: Watchdog finds no industrial safety faults on Druzhba

MOSCOW, Dec 13 (PRIME) -- The Federal Service for Environmental, Technological, and Nuclear Oversight has found no violations of industrial safety rules that could have led to contamination of the Drizhba oil pipeline, head of the service Alexei Alyoshin told PRIME in an interview released on Friday.

“I would like to emphasize -- no violations of industrial safety requirements, which could have become the reason for contamination were found after the checks,” Alyoshin said. He said that the authority offers to improve regulation in this sphere.

The problem with the quality of oil coming from Russia to Europe across Belarus via the Druzhba pipeline appeared in April. Good-quality oil deliveries resumed in early May, but Russian oil pipeline monopoly Transneft is still discussing compensations.

Alyoshin said that after the check the service ordered to eliminate 365 faults on the units of the Druzhba infrastructure and imposed 502,000 rubles of fines.

No equipment failures were registered after the Druzhba contamination, so it is impossible to speak in terms of direct technical damage, he said.

“It seems impossible to speak about direct technological damage because no failures or need for repairs of equipment in the units of Transneft due to the deteriorated quality of oil was detected,” Alyoshin said. He said that the authority had offered additional in-line inspections to check for any damage.

The official said separately that the watchdog sees reasons to revise an agreement between the authorities and oil companies on upgrade of oil refineries of 2011 because the oil market has become different. “We signed this agreement when there were no sanctions and the market was different. So there is sense in revising the agreement but the proposal should be made by the Energy Ministry. The idea is in the air, I need to say, and if it is discussed, we will support it,” he said.

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