Russian Oil Supplies Via Druzhba To Belarus Stopped?

What we know so far.

After two AFU strikes on Druzhba oil pipeline facilities in Russia, the pumping of oil to the European Union countries has stopped, Ukraine, Hungary and Slovakia said on August 18. A major node of the oil pipeline is located in Mozyr in the Gomel region, "Flagstaff" wrote.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó first wrote on Facebook that "Ukraine has again attacked the oil pipeline leading to Hungary, leading to a halt of oil supplies to the country." He referred to Russian Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin, who announced that Russian experts were working on the "speedy restoration of the transformer station" needed for the pipeline to function, and complained that it was not yet known when supplies would be restored.

Then, the Slovak oil company Transpetrol announced that it had stopped transporting oil through the Druzhba pipeline, according to which "the problem is outside Slovak territory."

Ukraine soon said that Druzhba had stopped completely Then, as Hungary claimed, oil pumping also stopped, but was soon resumed. Now, judging by official statements, the oil pipeline operation has stopped completely.

What does this mean for Belarus? "Druzhba, the world's largest trunk oil pipeline system, runs through Mozyr, where the pipeline splits into northern and southern branches. The northern branch goes to Poland and Germany, while the southern branch goes to Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Croatia. In Mozyr there is also the head station "Gomeltransneft Druzhba", where the branching of the oil flow takes place and from where the raw materials are delivered to the Mozyr Oil Refinery (MNPZ).

That is, not only supplies to Europe through Belarus, but also to the Mozyr refinery are suspended. However, MNPZ has its own large tank farm, so, probably, it won't feel the problem with raw materials yet. There is no official information about it.

The same applies to Druzhba - both Russian and Belarusian representative offices of the company are silent about the incident. One of the latest news on the website of Gomeltransneft Druzhba is about a tactical and special exercise to work out an operational fire-fighting plan at the tank farms in Mozyr.

It is not the first time that the Druzhba pipeline has been attacked in Russia, but earlier the company managed to ensure uninterrupted supply of oil to consumers - at the expense of redundant equipment and oil storage facilities at the linear production and dispatch stations. The system has a significant safety margin. There are several pumping stations at the oil pipeline facilities, and each station has several pumps. Therefore, a blow to a pump or a tank can only be compared to a scheduled repair.

On this occasion, however, if public statements are to be believed, a transformer station was put out of operation, which became critical for the system.

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