Galek: Adria Pipeline Bottleneck May Curb Oil Flows to Slovakia (3)

Bratislava, 19 February (TASR) - A potential bottleneck on the Adria oil pipeline, which is expected to supply Hungary and Slovakia due to the non-functioning Druzhba pipeline, may turn out to be the tanker discharge capacity at the Croatian terminal of Omisalj, which is limited to 5.6 million tonnes of oil per year, opposition MP Karol Galek (SaS) warned at a press briefing on Thursday. Galek pointed out that Slovakia and Hungary consumed more than a total of 9 million tonnes of oil between them last year. "The alternative that we have today is the Adria pipeline, which runs from the Croatian port of Omisalj and will transport oil via Hungary to Slovakia. This pipeline has a capacity of 14.3 million tonnes of oil per year. That's the technical capacity of the pipeline. However, we have a bottleneck here, namely the port of Omisalj on the island of Krk. The discharge capacity for individual tankers is 5.6 million tonnes per year. Last year, Slovakia alone consumed 4.9 million tonnes of oil supplied via Druzhba, while Hungary consumed 4.3 million tonnes," he noted. "We are saying that there's a bottleneck in Omisalj, which can transport or discharge 5.6 million tonnes of oil per year. It may be technically manageable to transport even more, but no one has tested that yet," he warned. According to Galek, a second alternative is the port of Trieste in Italy, through which oil could theoretically be transported to Slovakia. "It would go via Vienna and to the Czech Republic, from where we could subsequently redirect oil to Slovakia. Although Trieste has a capacity of 40 million tonnes per year, the capacity leading from the Czech Republic to Slovakia is only 1.5 million tonnes per year. There's a bottleneck in Kralupy. There is a reverse flow there, but it's never been tested. There is a pipeline that hasn't been used since last year because the Czechs no longer use Russian oil. To test and put such a flow into operation would take us two to three months," he stressed. Galek added that although Slovakia has emergency oil reserves for 90 days in line with EU regulations, the actual usable amount covers a shorter period. "According to my information, the maximum extractable amount is for some 50, perhaps 60 days. This is partly because these reserves are of lower quality; There's a large amount of sludge and sand at the bottom of the tanks. That requires much more demanding technological processing," added Galek. In response, the Economy Ministry has stated that intensive talks are under way on alternative oil supplies to the region. "At the same time, we're negotiating with partners in Croatia and the Czech Republic on the possibility of using their capacities and infrastructure," said Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Denisa Sakova (Voice-SD). In addition, Sakova is continuing negotiations with Czech Industry and Trade Minister Karel Havlicek on the possibility of using available capacities for reverse transport via Czech infrastructure as a supplementary solution, given its limited capacity, as well as with her Croatian counterpart on the provision of Croatian capacities. Additional deliveries to the Omisalj terminal are expected at the beginning of March, with the first physical oil supplies to Slovakia likely to take place in the second half of March. "Supplies via the Adria pipeline will enable the Slovnaft refinery to operate and at the same time create room for the gradual replenishment of emergency reserves. The pipeline has sufficient free capacity until the end of 2026, partly due to an outage at the refinery in Szazhalombatta, Hungary, caused by a fire," said the Economy Ministry. NOTE: This story has been extended to include the final three paragraphs mf/df