Petroleum Industry in Poland 2012/2013
Crude Oil and Fuel Logistics
We Must Take Into Account
Every Possible Scenario
An interview with Marcin Moskalewicz
– Chairman of the Board
of PERN “Przyjaźń” S.A.
– The overwhelming majority of crude oil imported to
Polish refineries (more than 90% of all crude processed)
has originated and continues to originate from the Russian
Federation. Do you believe that Poland is secure in terms
of crude oil and petroleum product supplies in upcoming
years, and if so, how?
– Securing supplies of crude oil for Polish refineries, that
is making sure that this energy “bloodstream” that feeds
our economy with “black gold” functions properly is the
absolute top-priority task for PERN “Przyjaźń”, which is
a member of the group of strategic companies for good reason. Currently, PERN certainly guarantees reliability of
crude oil supply for its clients – Polish and German refineries – as it has two transport routes at its disposal: from
the east, the pipeline through Adamowo, and from the sea,
via the Naftoport in Gdańsk. This obviously does not release us from conducting in-depth analyses of changes on
the crude oil and fuel logistics market, and from drawing
conclusions and adapting our continually updated strategy
and investment activities to these conclusions.
– Yes, what is the situation in the context of the real
threat brought about by opening of the BTS-2 crude oil pipeline in the 1st quarter of last year and the expansion of
Russian fuel depots in Primorsk and Ust-Luga – Transneft
made it no secret that it is planning to significantly reduce
the export of crude oil through transit countries, including
Poland?
– Firstly, I will stress this again, there is no risk today:
thanks to alternative supply routes, we are capable of supplying crude oil to Polish and German refineries regardless of the direction from which it is pumped. Secondly,
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the expansion of the Russian depot in Ust-Luga has so far
led to a slight reduction of supply via the “Przyjaźń” pipeline to Polish and German refineries (the difference from
year to year is merely 2.2%, 4% including transit). It is true
that transit has dropped radically and its future is likely
questionable, but we have been anticipating this since the
beginning of construction of the Ust-Luga facility. Anyway,
the volume of transit in the past has varied, with some really small values in some years. Moreover, it seems a paradox but this significantly lower transit through Naftoport
has not reduced the proceeds of Naftoport and PERN. On
the contrary – last year, both companies have achieved
excellent financial results, with PERN achieving the best
result in history!
– By the way, it must be noted that cooperation with
a difficult partner that Transneft is considered to be, requires a lot of flexibility on your part. What is the basis for,
and what inconvenience must PERN take into consideration in this peculiar cooperation?
– I do not share this view. We have been working together with Transneft for the past one half century and please note that in all that time, despite changing political
systems, governments, international political and military alliances, the supply of crude oil via the “Przyjaźń”
pipeline was never interrupted. In our view, Transneft
is a solid, predictable partner. Naturally, there is a certain peculiarity in our mutual relations which results on
one hand from the scale of operations and size of this
Russian company (please remember that Transneft uses
a network of 70 000 km of crude oil pipelines with 500
pumping stations and a capacity of 20 million m3) and
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2013-05-19 13:59:56