March 21 (SeeNews) - Hungarian oil group MOL said on Tuesday it has started shipping crude from a field in Azerbaijan to its refinery in Slovakia via the Adria pipeline operated by Croatian company Janaf [ZSE: JNAF], as it aims to increase the flexibility of oil procurement.
“This new crude source not only allows our company greater flexibility and resilience in its crude oil sourcing strategy but also gives us the opportunity to cover our entire value chain „from well to wheel”, MOL said on its Linkedin profile.
The 90,000 tonnes of crude came from the ACG field in Azerbaijan, in which MOL is the third largest shareholder, the Hungarian group said. A tanker carried the shipment from the port of Ceyhan, Turkey to Janaf’s terminal in Omisalj, Croatia, from where it is being transported via the Janaf pipeline to the Slovnaft refinery.
“This is another important milestone in Slovnaft’s and MOL Group’s journey toward greater crude sourcing flexibility amid European sanctions prohibiting the export of petroleum products from EU member states,” media outlet Daily News Hungary quoted MOL as saying in a press release on Monday.
So far, MOL has been delivering crude to the Bratislava refinery via the Druzhba oil pipeline, one of the world’s largest. Druzhba, with a capacity to flow 2 million barrels per day, is supplying Russian oil to much of central Europe including Germany, Poland, Belarus, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Austria.
“MOL continues to import Russian Export Blend via the Druzhba pipeline, as it is convinced that the best way to guarantee the security of the fuel supply in the Central and Eastern European region is to keep traditional supply channels intact while exploring and securing alternative ones,” the oil group added in the press release.
In January, Janaf said it signed two contracts for crude oil transportation and storage with MOL for the first quarter of 2023.
Janaf’s shares traded flat at 730 euro ($787) intraday on Tuesday on the Zagreb bourse.
($ = 0.927 euro)