Mol will take over the ownership of the affected quantities of crude oil coming from Russia at the Belarusian-Ukrainian border with effect from September 9, the Hungarian group announced after the stock market closed on Monday. Agreements with crude oil suppliers and pipeline operators also ensure the continuous supply of crude oil from Russia via the Ukrainian section of the Friendship Pipeline in the direction of Hungary and Slovakia, they added. The new procedure fully complies with all related EU and Ukrainian restrictions and regulations. In the announcement, Szabó Gabriel, the executive director of the group’s processing-wholesale business, calls the “sustainable agreement” an “outstanding result”, which, according to him, contributes to the security of supply of both states by ensuring the most efficient and reliable crude oil processing.
Experts believe that the new agreement was made necessary by the fact that at the end of June, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi banned the transmission of shipments from Russia’s Lukoil, known as the Mol Group’s main oil supplier, through his country. From now on, however, shipments in the territory of our northeastern neighbor are already running under the name of Mol. By the way, as it turned out, the Molos orders were fulfilled even after the presidential decision, which did not apply to other Russian suppliers. It should also be noted: in response to Ukraine’s invasion, all over the EU, in addition to the Czech Republic, which will also be separated in the future, only Budapest and Bratislava now buy Russian oil, even though these two refineries could also switch to other sources via the Adriatic pipeline. A sustainable business relationship with a war aggressor is no longer financially worth it – thanks to Viktor Orbán’s struggles in Brussels: according to the Portfolio report, in recent days the price of the Russian type, which is traditionally somewhat cheaper than the leading type of oil called Brent – much since the invasion of Ukraine – has suddenly jumped above the former.
Source: nepszava.hu
