17:30 - 30.04.2019

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April 30, Fineko/abc.az. On 30 April Belarus stopped fully receiving oil from Russia, and it is planned to restore transit on 2 May after displacement of low-quality oil.

TASS reports that the statement was made on Tuesday by Andrey Verigo, first deputy general director and chief engineer of Gomeltransneft Druzhba OJSC in an interview to reporters.

"At 8 am on 30 April all the route orders for the month were fulfilled and the reception of oil from Russia was completely stopped. High-quality oil is on the 30th kilometer of Unecha-Mozyr route," said Verigo, quoted by BelTA Agency. “This is a third of the way from Unecha to the state border with the Republic of Belarus. Its further transportation through the territory of Belarus is to be resumed after the displacement of poor-quality oil from the Russian section approximately on 2 May".

According to Verigo, "using this forced pause, we’ll try to carry out the necessary repairs".

He stressed that the measures taken will allow to restore the work of only one line of Druzhba pipeline, while the second pipeline will remain closed for an indefinite time, and it will become a kind of storage for substandard oil. He recalled that on 29 April at 5:40 pm after the separation shell it was launched the pumping of oil, that corresponds to the standard parameters, from the Russian linear production & control station Unecha towards the Belarusian-Russian border and LPCS "Mozyr".

According to company’s assessment, total volume of low-quality oil in the pipelines of the Druzhba system in sections of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Poland is about 5 million tons. BelTA Agency specifies that speech is about preliminary assessment.

Earlier, Belneftekhim informed that more than 170,000 tons of contaminated oil will be displaced from the oil pipeline at the Russian and Belarusian sections, and 120,000 tons of them to the reservoirs of LPCS "Mozyr".