Astana will export 1.2 million tons of crude to Berlin this year to cover some of the volume previously supplied by Moscow
The Russian Energy Ministry has approved the delivery of Kazakh oil to Germany using the infrastructure run by Transneft, a state-owned pipeline transport company and operator of Russia’s section of the Druzhba pipeline.
Oil transportation company KazTransOil will deliver 300,000 tons of crude in the first quarter of 2023 “in the direction of the Adamova Zastava oil delivery point for further delivery to Germany,” the company’s press service said in a statement on Friday.
The operator added that shipments of this amount of crude are scheduled for the transit of oil from CIS member states through Russia via the system of main pipelines.
Berlin stopped imports of Russian oil via pipelines on January 1, despite the fact that the latest EU embargo exempts piped deliveries of crude to the bloc from the sanctions-hit nation.
Earlier, Kazakhstan’s energy minister, Bolat Akchulakov, said that in 2023, the country would supply 1.5 million tons of oil to Germany with a possible increase of future shipments to 7 million tons.
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Transneft spokesman Igor Demin noted that the “volumes that used to flow from Russia to Germany cannot be replaced by Kazakhstan.” He explained that while Russia once shipped up to 20 million tons of oil a year to Germany and another 10 million tons to Poland via Druzhba, Kazakhstan is only able to pump 3-7 million tons.