Czech oil imports from Russia rose to a decade high in 1H23

The share of Russian oil imported by the Druzhba [Friendship] pipeline to Czechia this year rose to 65%. Last year, the share was 56%, while it was even lower in the years before, the Czech Press Agency (CTK) reported, quoting Czech state-controlled oil transporting and storage company Mero. The share of Russian crude oil imports into Czechia is the highest since 2012.

Czechia has been exempted from the EU-wide embargo on Russian oil due to its high dependency on Russian imports. Besides the Druzhba pipeline, Czechia imports oil from the TAL pipeline running from the Italian port of Trieste to Austria and Germany, where Czechia is connected to it with its IKL pipeline.

Ministry of Trade and Industry told CTK that Unipetrol, a Czech branch of the Polish PKN Orlen, carries out oil imports, and the IKL pipeline’s full capacities prevent further imports from IKL.

“TAL pipeline has free capacities only in the first months of the year and then from October onwards,” Marek Vosahlik of the ministry’s press department was quoted as saying by CTK.  

In May, Mero signed an agreement with TAL shareholders to intensify the pipeline in a CZK1.6bn (€67.5mn) TAL-PLUS intensification project, which will increase the pipeline’s transporting capacity to Czechia by 4 million tonnes of oil annually.

With TAL-PLUS in operation, the country will secure 8 million tonnes of oil annually and will be able to stop imports of Russian oil. “With this crucial step, we will get rid of the dependency on Russian oil,” Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala stated in May following the signing of an agreement between Mero and TAL shareholders.    

Some 7.4 million tonnes of oil were imported to Czechia in 2022, which is a 7% increase year-on-year, and 56% of it came from Russia. 

About 30 protesters demanded an end to high imports of Russian oil to the country on Sunday before the Ministry’s building in Prague city centre. CTK quoted the “NE ruske rope” [NO to Russian oil] platform, which stated that Czechia paid CZK25bn for Russian oil imports and that CZ7bn were unnecessary payments to the Russian state budget.

The news of the increased flow of Russian oil into Czechia comes less than a month after online news outlet Seznam Zpravy (SZ) reported that Mero could be breaching sanctions by contracting oil purchases from a Cypriot company with links to Russian oil giant Lukoil.

SZ’s reporters Lukas Valasek and Adela Jelinkova wrote on August 13 that Mero has contracted oil purchases worth CZK1.1bn (€46mn) from Cypriot company Normeston even though the public procurement law prohibits contracting Russian subcontractors, which Normeston is suspected of using.

“Normeston’s ownership is linked with Russian holding NTK, the successor of petrochemical company SMART OIL,” sanctions analyst Jiri Skuhrovec of Datlab was quoted as saying by SZ in August. Skuhrovec added that if NTK supplies the oil, then  “it is a case of breaching sanction rules.” Mero stated it had not committed any wrongdoing.

Slovakia and Hungary are also exempted from the Russian oil imports embargo. Slovak refinery Slovnaft, which is part of Hungarian MOL, said it wants the EU to prolong its exemption from the embargo, with Hungarian authorities backing the move.