The Parliamentary Committee on Economic Policy has decided to postpone for 12 months the termination of Lukoil’s derogation for working with Russian crude oil. During this period, the refinery will gradually reduce the quantities of the “Ural” variety. The Minister of Economy, Bogdan Bogdanov, warned of a surge in fuel prices and a deficit if, without preparation, one switches to oil that is not from Russia.
“The risks are high, especially for the 30-day period as it is currently set. I can’t predict exactly what the prices would be, but the prices will rise significantly, and here it must be said that there will also be opportunities for speculation and even shortage of fuels”, said Bogdan Bogdanov – Minister of Economy.
According to him, dropping out in a 30-day period, as it is set at the moment, hides behind it serious risks.
“On the one hand, the supply of crude oil. What we have seen is that, in the end, for the last one year, we have done almost no preparation. “Lukoil” had not submitted a timetable, they had not given the specific measures and steps they would take. This happened at the beginning of September. This is one of the reasons why we base our calculations on a report that was also prepared by the Security Council to the ICJ, and there we have noted the specific risks. Of course, the supply of the fuels – this is the supply of crude oil. That’s the one risk and it takes time to negotiate.”
“The other risk, which is purely logistical, when loading new quantities, which, if they are outside the Bosphorus, the suppliers, it also takes logistical time to reach the refinery. It should be known that the work of the refinery is currently organized like this , to have a rhythmic supply, a few tankers a month, which means that every 6 days or so we get a tanker to the refinery to be processed. At the moment, this is the main case that if the derogation goes away, we should have , firstly, the agreed quantities of non-Russian crude oil to be processed in the refinery. Those quantities to be agreed with such parameters that in the end there will be a rhythmic supply, but also the quality of the crude oil that we will receive, which means that we are talking here for long-term contracts to be signed by the operator, and not spot deals, so-called in the market, which on the one hand would be a higher price and which would significantly affect the prices of end users.”
“We must also ensure the transport. This thing is very important, the transport to Rosenets, so that the refinery does not stop its activity. But the other important thing, apart from the derogation itself and the transition to completely non-Russian oil, is what we want to be discussed , is the capacity of the refinery to be maintained and one of our theses is that we have to take the average turnovers that have been generated by the refinery in recent years, because very quickly we can go to 100% non-Russian oil if we significantly shorten the production process and limit the quantities of raw production that the refinery processes,” said Minister Bogdanov.
