Poland to share oil surplus with Germany

Poland plans to supply Germany with the entirety of its surplus of crude oil, the climate ministry has announced, after Germany took control of a refinery majority owned by Russian oil giant Rosneft, something Poland had demanded.

“Poland envisages supplying the German side with the full surplus of crude oil between the needs of domestic refineries and the technical capacity of our infrastructure,” said the climate ministry, quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

While Poland had signalled earlier that it could support Germany by supplying oil, it laid down a condition: no Russian presence in the Schwedt refinery, in which Rosneft has a 54.17% stake via a subsidiary.

“There should be no Russian participation and presence in all elements, be it storage or the refinery itself, anything related to oil in Germany,” said the Polish climate minister Anna Moskwa in June.

Earlier this month, Germany took over the refinery in Schwedt and put Rosneft Deutschland under the trusteeship of the German industry regulator.

The refinery supplies 90% of the gasoline, jet fuel, diesel and fuel oil in the Berlin and Brandenburg markets and is itself supplied from Russia via Poland through the Druzhba (“Friendship” in Russian) pipeline, which is operated by the Polish PERN Group.

The Polish ministry said it “welcomes” Germany’s recent decisions, PAP reported. Rosneft, however, has pushed back, saying it could go to court to challenge Berlin’s decision to take the company’s German subsidiary under trusteeship and threatening to temporarily cut off Germany’s oil supply through the Druzhba pipeline.

Meanwhile, the German economy ministry has entered talks with potential buyers for the Schwedt refinery, including a Polish company, two government sources in Berlin told Reuters. According to the agency’s previous reports, Polish state oil giant PKN Orlen was interested in buying a controlling stake in Schwedt.

In response to media reports, Orlen said that the company is monitoring the situation in the region on an ongoing basis, but fell short of confirming or denying the information, while the Polish climate ministry said it is up to the company to decide on a possible acquisition.

“In the context of the takeover of part of the shares in the PCK Schwedt refinery by a Polish company, it should be pointed out that decisions to undertake investments are taken by the companies themselves, depending on their capabilities and anticipated benefits,” said the ministry, quoted by PAP.

Germany, the Netherlands and Poland were the top importers of Russian oil in Europe last year, but all three also have the capacity to bring in seaborne crude from other countries.

In March, Poland announced that it would seek to end all Russian energy imports by the end of this year. Orlen has pledged to ensure oil supplies not only in Poland but also to the surrounding region, thanks to a contract signed with Saudi Aramco in January, which envisages supplying over 300,000 barrels per day.

However, according to data published by the International Energy Agency (IEA), in June Poland was still more dependent on Russian oil supplies than Germany, with 46% of its oil imports coming from Russia compared to 23% in the case of Germany.

Main image credit: Marco Verch/Flickr (under CC BY 2.0)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.