energy
Brandenburg hopes for a future for PCK in Schwedt
The PCK refinery has around 1,200 employees and processes the Russian oil from the Druzhba pipeline, which ends in Schwedt/Oder. Photo: Patrick Pleul/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
“Refinery 2.0” – can the PCK in Schwedt also survive independently of oil? According to Brandenburg’s Economics Minister, a transformation of the classic refinery concept is inevitable anyway.
Like the federal government, Brandenburg is also banking on the long-term future of the PCK refinery in Schwedt/Oder – independent of oil.
«I see the future in a site with a new, more modern refinery concept using hydrogen as well as corresponding biomaterials. So a refinery 2.0, »said Brandenburg’s Economics Minister Jörg Steinbach (SPD) to the «Potsdamer Latest News» (Monday). He assumes seven to eight years, or ten years if you want to be sure. “The transformation is a task that was pending anyway, because one could assume that in the next ten years the classic concept of a refinery would no longer work.”
Visit from Habeck
Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) wants to visit the PCK refinery on Monday evening to talk to the employees and the management against the background of the EU’s planned oil embargo against Russia. The refinery, which according to the state government has around 1,200 employees, processes the Russian oil from the Druzhba pipeline, which ends in Schwedt/Oder.
PCK is majority owned by the Russian state-owned company Rosneft. The federal government is looking with Brandenburg for alternatives to Russian oil, which according to Steinbach would only account for up to 70 percent of the previous output. With a change in the law, the federal government could place the refinery under state trusteeship or even expropriate it. Habeck sees the chance of a future refinery in Schwedt.
According to the Brandenburg SPD economics minister, the role of former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) as chairman of the Rosneft supervisory board is not clear. “To me, the perception of the role that Mr. Schröder has on the Rosneft supervisory board is not entirely plausible,” said Steinbach. That is why he cannot make any statements about what Schröder should or should not do.