IHT - Russia Deepens Oil Shipment Cuts To Czech Republic - July Cutbacks To Date Hit 50%

BERLIN: Russia has further reduced its oil deliveries to the Czech Republic, bringing total July cutbacks to 50 percent, senior Czech officials said Wednesday, a disruption that is again calling into question Russia's reliability as an energy supplier to Central and Eastern Europe.

Supplies were reduced about 40 percent early in the month. A further cut in the past few days reduced the flow to half its pre-July level, officials said. Russia's oil pipeline monopoly, Transneft, has declined to give any indication of when full operations will resume through the Druzhba, or Friendship, Pipeline, said the Czech officials, who included Vaclav Bartuska, ambassador at large for energy security. Bartuska said that if Russia was eager to promote itself as a reliable supplier of energy to European customers, the way it was treating the Czech Republic could damage its reputation.

"The fact that we are not being told the real reasons for the disruption and expect reductions to be increased by more than 50 percent for the month of August shows the lack of transparency in the way the system works," he said.

EDIT

Transneft cut supplies in early July, a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed an accord with her Czech counterpart to deploy part of the Pentagon's antiballistic missile shield on Czech territory. Russia denied then that the decision to cut supplies from a contracted July volume of 500,000 tons to 300,000 tons had been in retaliation for the signing. Mikhail Barkov, Transneft vice president, said there were "technical and commercial reasons," adding that two Russian producer companies, Bashneft and Tatneft, considered it more profitable to process the crude oil in Russia before exporting it.

EDIT

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/30/europe/czech.php

Infrastructure may also have a role to play here, given how old and creaky much of the pipeline & refinery systems over there must be.

Bartuska is a durak! As if anyone sitting on oil to export is going to have to eagerly go out and find a reclusive buyer. :rofl: