Croatia is ready to help Hungary and Slovakia with oil supplies after the interruption of Russian oil imports through the Druzhba pipeline. The capacities of the Croatian company JANAF - a joint-stock company with majority state capital, operator of the Adriatic oil pipeline, are sufficient and there are no technical reasons not to import Russian oil, announced today the Minister of Economy Ante Šusnájár on the social network Ex, reacting to a message from the Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, BTA reported.
Szijjártó announced last night on the same network that “since Ukraine refuses to resume oil transit through the Druzhba pipeline for political reasons“, together with Slovak Economy Minister Denisa Sakova has sent a letter to Croatian Economy Minister Ante Susnjár, urging Croatia to allow the transport of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia via the Adriatic pipeline.
“We are ready to help resolve the abrupt interruption of supplies, in accordance with EU legislation and OFAC regulations (the agency within the US Treasury Department that manages and enforces economic and trade sanctions, ed.). No one should be left without fuel“, Susnjár said, quoted by the “Jutarni list” newspaper.
The Croatian minister recalled that he had always claimed that JANAF had sufficient capacity for this.
“Although we were accused of “war speculation”, our tariffs were and remain transparent and market-based. Croatia supports the critical infrastructure stable and problem-free, regardless of any political accusations and will not allow fuel supplies to Central Europe to be jeopardized“, emphasizes Šušnář.
With this, he is clearly alluding to the claims of Hungarian political and energy circles before the closure of the “Družba“ pipeline that JANAF does not have sufficient capacity to adequately supply MOL refineries in Hungary and Slovakia with crude oil and that Croatian transport fees are too high, commented the Croatian news portal Index.