The flow of oil along a key pipeline transporting Russian crude to central Europe has been halted amid a row over payments, threatening supplies to the region and exposing the EU’s continued reliance on Russian imports.
The southern branch of the Druzhba pipeline, which takes Russian oil across Ukraine to refineries in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary, stopped pumping five days ago, Russia’s state-owned pipeline operator Transneft said in a statement on Tuesday.
According to Transneft, Ukraine cut off the flow after a payment for transit fees was blocked because of problems related to the implementation of EU sanctions. The Russian company pays Ukraine’s state-owned UkrTransNafta a monthly fee in advance to use the pipeline, worth about $15mn last month.