Ukrainian PM says Lukoil sanctions do not threaten Slovak energy security

KYIV (Reuters) – Kiev’s sanctions banning the transit of oil from Russian producer Lukoil do not pose a threat to Slovakia’s energy security, Ukraine’s prime minister said on Wednesday.

The lifting of sanctions is not a subject for discussion and Kiev has the European Union’s “full understanding” on the matter, Denis Shmyhal said in a statement on Telegram Messenger.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Monday that his country would stop diesel supplies to Ukraine unless Kiev reestablishes oil flows from Russia’s Lukoil through its territory. Slovakia and Hungary together supply around 10% of Ukraine’s diesel.

“Slovakia is our reliable partner, from whom we do not expect blackmail or threats,” Shmyhal said.

“The sanctions… do not pose a threat to the energy security of Slovakia and Europe as a whole, which is why their lifting is not a subject of discussion,” he added.

At the end of June, Ukraine imposed sanctions against Lukoil, one of Russia’s largest oil companies, banning it from any activity on Ukrainian territory and preventing its oil from passing to Slovak and Hungarian refineries.

Sanctions against Lukoil began to take effect at the end of June, but Hungary and Slovakia did not report supply problems until mid-July.

The Druzhba, or “friendship,” pipeline linking Russia with Eastern Europe continued to operate through more than two years of war, even as the EU withdrew from most other sources of Russian energy supplies.

The southern branch of the pipeline runs through Ukraine to the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, and has been the main source of supply to its refineries for years. Rosneft, Lukoil and Tatneft have been the main Russian exporters through the route.

Ukrainian oil transport company Ukrtransnafta said earlier this month that after the sanctions against Lukoil came into force, it requested oil pumping agent MOL and was assured that there was no oil belonging to Lukoil in the volumes transported through the Ukrainian territory.

Ukrtransnafta has information about the oil producer before it starts putting oil into its system, but it does not know the true owner of the oil, which may change along the route.

The absence of Lukoil oil in transit was also confirmed by Naftogaz head Oleksiy Chernyshov, who also said that transit volumes were stable despite Lukoil’s absence.

(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa and Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Conor Humphries)