Head of Hungary's MOL sees no reason to wean off Russian oil
BUDAPEST, Aug 5 (Reuters) -The head of Hungarian oil and gas giant MOL has said he sees no advantage in Hungary weaning itself off Russian oil supplies, and dismissed warnings of fuel shortages in the country as "politics".
Following Russia's 2022 invasion, the EU prohibited oil imports to its member states, but gave an exemption to Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to allow them to find alternative routes and supplies. Many critics say Hungary has not done enough to achieve that.
"Why should we wean ourselves off Russian oil, exactly?" Zsolt Hernadi, CEO of MOL group asked the audience during a panel talk last Friday in northern-Hungarian city of Esztergom, according to a recording heard by Reuters.
The refineries in landlocked Hungary and Slovakia are fed with Russian crude via the Druzhba pipeline's southern spur, but supplies from Russia's biggest oil exporter Lukoil LKOH.MM through Ukraine were halted in July following a ban by Ukrainian authorities.
The European Union then suggested Hungary and Slovakia use spare capacity on the JANAF Adriatic pipeline in Croatia to supply both countries with non-Russian seaborne crude.
But both Hungary and Slovakia last week pushed back, saying Croatia had failed to invest in capacity building and questioned the published maximum capacity of the pipeline. Croatia dismissed as "deeply offensive" the suggestion it was not a reliable supplier.
"It isn't politicians but the management of MOL that decides where to buy oil from," Hernadi said.
"If we decided to halt (Russian oil) supply from Druzhba... Hungary would be left with only one route of supply (Adria pipeline). What's better? Two or one? Which gives more security (of supply)?"
Hungary receives 2 million metric tons of oil from the Russian group annually, around a third of its total oil imports.
Slovakia's Slovnaft refinery, which is owned by Hungarian oil and gas group MOL, was expected to receive 40% less oil for processing than needed, the Slovakian government said earlier in July.
When asked about the possibility of fuel shortages by September if the issue is not resolved, he dismissed it as "politics", and assured the audience that "until they (MOL) don't ring the bells there is nothing to worry about."
Reporting by Boldizsar Gyori; Editing by Conor Humphries
免責聲明: XM Group提供線上交易平台的登入和執行服務，允許個人查看和/或使用網站所提供的內容，但不進行任何更改或擴展其服務和訪問權限，並受以下條款與條例約束：（i）條款與條例；（ii）風險提示；（iii）完全免責聲明。網站內部所提供的所有資訊，僅限於一般資訊用途。請注意，我們所有的線上交易平台內容並不構成，也不被視為進入金融市場交易的邀約或邀請 。金融市場交易會對您的投資帶來重大風險。
所有缐上交易平台所發佈的資料，僅適用於教育/資訊類用途，不包含也不應被視爲適用於金融、投資稅或交易相關諮詢和建議，或是交易價格紀錄，或是任何金融商品或非應邀途徑的金融相關優惠的交易邀約或邀請。
本網站的所有XM和第三方所提供的内容，包括意見、新聞、研究、分析、價格其他資訊和第三方網站鏈接，皆爲‘按原狀’，並作爲一般市場評論所提供，而非投資建議。請理解和接受，所有被歸類為投資研究範圍的相關内容，並非爲了促進投資研究獨立性，而根據法律要求所編寫，而是被視爲符合營銷傳播相關法律與法規所編寫的内容。請確保您已詳讀並完全理解我們的非獨立投資研究提示和風險提示資訊，相關詳情請點擊 這裡查看。
