PRESS: Rosneft wants losses from Druzhba emergency compensated now

MOSCOW, Jun 11 (PRIME) -- Russian oil major Rosneft has asked the government to force oil pipeline monopoly Transneft to compensate for losses from oil contamination in the Druzhba pipeline already now, Kommersant business daily reported on Tuesday citing sources.

Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin sent a letter to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak asking to speed up the decision on compensation for Russian crude producers’ losses, several sources said.

Sechin said that Belarus’s Mozyr refinery wants U.S. $155 million of compensation and Poland’s company Orlen wants $45,000 for a lack of deliveries in April. The claims were sent to Transneft, but it has not confirmed its readiness to satisfy them. Meanwhile, foreign companies are looking for alternative imports and lawyers to file lawsuits.

Rosneft suffered losses as well as it had to reduce the output by 0.5 million tonnes of oil in May because of a “unilateral rejection” of Transneft to intake oil to the system, Sechin also said.

A representative of Transneft told Kommersant that the company has not yet received reasonable claims on loss compensation. The issue was discussed at a meeting with oil consumers on June 3, and the final protocol of the meeting reads that the consumers should define the size of their loss and provide evidence as soon as possible.

“The government has not yet made any decision on the compensations,” Kozak’s representative Ilya Dzhus told the daily and added that the issue was postponed until the Druzhba pipeline resumes operations.

The problem with the quality of oil coming from Russia to Europe across Belarus via the pipeline appeared in April. In Belarus, the Druzhba pipeline splits into two strings, one of which stretches to Poland and Germany, and the other to Ukraine, Slovakia and Hungary. Good-quality oil deliveries from Russia via the pipeline resumed in early May, but there is still much dirty oil in the system.

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