Bloomberg: Hungary and Slovakia continue to export oil from Russia

Hungary and Slovakia export oil from Russia through the territory of Ukraine, despite sanctions on the “Lukoil” gas pipeline. Now the countries use the services of the Russian oil company “Tatnafta”.

Bloomberg writes about this with reference to its own sources.

In July, Russia exported almost 436 thousand tons of crude oil to Hungary and about 356 thousand tons to Slovakia. Such volumes correspond to those at the beginning of this year.

A new technical solution, which Ukraine seems ready to accept, will mean that the transit of oil to Hungary will cost more, writes Bloomberg. The Hungarian oil company “Mol Group” is negotiating to supply Russian oil in the long term.

In 2022, Ukrainian law enforcement officers arrested billions of hryvnias from the Russian owners of the “Tatnafta” oil company.

What preceded?

Russian “Lukoil” has stopped supplying oil to Hungary and Slovakia due to Kyivʼs sanctions against the company, which effectively prohibit it from using the territory of Ukraine for transit. Both countries continued to receive Russian oil, taking advantage of the sanctions exemptions granted by the EU on the condition that they quickly find alternative sources of oil. However, this did not happen.

Due to the fact that Hungary and Slovakia no longer receive Russian oil, they even initiated the consultation procedure of the arbitration court with the European Commission. However, their attempt failed — the European Commission rejected the request to force Kyiv to allow the transit of oil from the Russian Federation. Instead, the EU offered Croatia as an alternative for oil supplies — Hungary called the country "unreliable".

Hungary and Slovakia resorted to threats: Hungarian Foreign Minister Szijjártó said that his country would block EU military aid to Ukraine until it lifted sanctions against “Lukoil”, and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico threatened to cut diesel exports to Ukraine. Ukraine has declared that it will not cancel the sanctions against “Lukoil”.

In August, Szijjártó said that Hungary had found where to supply oil after it stopped receiving it through the “Lukoil” oil pipeline, whose operation was blocked by Ukraine. However, he did not name the new source at the time.