Report: Belarus may fully return dirty oil to Russia in July

MINSK, Jun 24 (PRIME) -- Contaminated oil may be fully moved back to Russia early, already in July, Chief Engineer of the Belarusian oil pipeline operator Gomeltransneft Druzhba Andrei Verigo said in an interview with a corporate magazine of the local oil holding Belneftekhim, released on Monday.

"The roadmap envisages removal of bad-quality crude (from Belarus) until August 15. The Russian side has increased the inflow limit at the Unecha station so there are prerequisites to remove dirty oil from the system ahead of schedule, in July," he said.

The problem with the quality of oil coming from Russia to Europe across Belarus via the Druzhba pipeline appeared in April. Belarus began pumping contaminated oil back to Russia in late May through one of the pipeline’s threads.

Verigo said that the Druzhba pipeline will operate at half of its capacity soon and will be able to reach full capacity only after all its threads are completely cleaned, which will take around eight months.

"Contaminated oil has been pumped for five days, and we will send it back during two months because the maximal speed of a reverse flow is four times as low as of (the direct flow) … According to Russian experts' assessment, (oil pipeline monopoly) Transneft will need eight months to clean the pipeline," he said.

The sum of the loss will be estimated only after the work is done, the executive added.

Belarus will construct a laboratory to control the quality of oil coming from Russia at the Gomel oil pumping station, he also said.

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