Tatneft and Russian oil pipeline monopoly Transneft did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Oil transport to the Czech Republic, where Orlen operates two refineries, via the southern branch of the Druzhba pipeline was running to plan, pipeline operator Mero said on Saturday.
The supply halt came after U.S. President Joe Biden visited
Warsaw and Kyiv in a show of support for Ukraine a year after
the invasion. And on Friday, the European Union agreed on a 10th
package of sanctions on Russia.
Following the invasion of Ukraine and before the EU
embargoed seaborne supplies from Russia, Orlen stopped buying
Russian oil and fuels transported by sea.
It said its supply portfolio now includes oil from Western
Africa, the Mediterranean, the Gulf and the Gulf of Mexico. It
also has a supply contract with Saudi Aramco as of 2022.
Seaborne supplies reach Poland via Naftoport, an oil
terminal in Gdansk on the Baltic Sea. It can receive 36 million
tonnes of oil annually topping volumes that can be processed by
Polish refineries and is in part used to supply oil to
refineries in eastern Germany that are linked to Druzhba.
"Given the capacity of Naftoport and the fact that we also
have other routes to import motor fuels, clients will not feel
any impact, while Orlen has been prepared for this for months,"
Mateusz Berger, Poland's Secretary of State in charge of
strategic energy infrastructure told Reuters by telephone.
(Reporting by Marek Strzelecki; Additional reporting by Jason
Hovet; Editing by Helen Popper, Frank Jack Daniel and Alexander
Smith)
