Czech government allowed to take oil from the state reserve for the duration of the Druzhba shutdown

The Czech government has authorized the use of 330,000 tons of oil from state reserves for the oil refinery in Litvinov due to the cessation of oil supplies via the southern branch of the Druzhba oil pipeline. This was announced on Wednesday, December 4, by Pavel Schwagr, head of the Czech Republic's State Material Reserves Administration (SMA), on the social network X (formerly Twitter).

"Today, due to the failure of the Druzhba oil pipeline, the government approved the possibility of allocating up to 330,000 tons of crude oil for the Litvinovsk refinery from our emergency reserves," the post reads.

Shvagr added that the pumping will be carried out if oil supplies do not resume in the coming days. According to him, as of today UGMR has oil reserves with the expectation of 86 days.

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On the same day Novinky portal with reference to the Minister of Industry and Trade of the Republic Lukas Vlcek reported that the Czech Republic stopped receiving oil through the Russian pipeline Druzhba.

Pavel Kaidl, a spokesman for Unipetrol, which operates two refineries in the Czech Republic, said the problem was a delay in oil deliveries by the supplier. At the same time, Transneft pointed out that oil deliveries through the Druzhba pipeline in Russia are carried out normally.