Status: 12/19/2022 6:20 p.m
The refinery in Schwedt, which is important for the fuel supply in the north-east, is soon to receive oil from Poland and Kazakhstan – because an embargo on Russian crude oil comes into force. The federal government does not expect higher fuel prices.
Despite the oil embargo against Russia, the German government believes that the supply of crude oil to the PCK refinery in Schwedt is secure. From January onwards, the plant should be supplied with oil primarily from Poland, said Michael Kellner, State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Economics. He does not assume that the change in oil deliveries will have a strong impact on fuel prices. It will be noticeable, but he doesn’t expect any “huge price swings,” said Kellner.
The background is an oil embargo against Russia. While EU countries have been able to agree on an embargo on oil delivered by tanker, which has been in place since early December, this does not apply to oil delivered by pipeline. However, Poland and Germany had voluntarily declared that they would also refrain from using Russian pipeline oil. This embargo comes into effect on January 1st.
To date, PCK has been processing Rosneft oil
The PCK refinery is important for supplying fuel to the filling stations in the greater Berlin area and large parts of north-eastern Germany. So far, it has mainly been supplied with crude oil from the Russian state-owned company Rosneft via the Druzhba pipeline. The group also owns the majority of the plant, which is currently under German trusteeship. Alternatively, it can be supplied with oil through existing pipelines via the ports of Rostock and Gdansk.
Negotiations with Kazakhstan
According to the federal government, Poland has pledged to supply enough crude oil from January to use the plant at 70 percent capacity. In addition, the shareholders of the refinery tried to get supply contracts with Kazakhstan. According to Kellner, they are negotiating larger delivery quantities, smaller deliveries have already been agreed. “I’m optimistic that larger quantities will come,” said Kellner. He has already discussed this with government officials from Kazakhstan. However, the Kazakh oil has to be pumped to Schwedt via pipelines – and they also run through Russian territory.
State and local politicians from Brandenburg and Schwedt were relieved that the refinery could continue to operate and that the jobs were therefore secured. The federal and state governments had provided a total of 1.3 billion euros to secure and convert the east German refineries that work with Russian crude oil. In addition to PCK in Schwedt, this also affects the Leuna refinery in Saxony-Anhalt. How the 1.3 billion will be divided between the locations is not yet clear.