Slovakia still sees Russia as reliable energy exporter

PRAGUE, Jun 5 (PRIME) -- Slovakia plans to calculate the financial damage inflicted by contaminated oil from Russia after it understands costs of damage control, but it still sees Moscow as a reliable supplier of energy sources, Slovakian Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini told PRIME on Wednesday.

“We are positive about the fact that coordinated efforts of the interested firms that operate our oil pipelines managed to solve the non-standard situation. I believe that as Slovakia wants to remain a reliable transit country for Russian gas to Europe, the Russian side as well wants to remain a reliable supplier of energy sources to the European countries, including Slovakia,” he said.

Slovakia reacted to the situation timely and had enough reserves to weather the crisis. “We will be able to define the financial costs only after we calculate spending on elimination of the contaminated oil inflow into the energy sources. All topics that interest both sides will be open for discussion during my visit to Russia,” he said.

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

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