La Federació Russa o Rússia és el país més extens del món. Està situat sobre part del continent europeu i asiàtic. Les seves costes estan banyades per l’Oceà Àrtic, l’Oceà Pacífic del Nord, i per mars interiors com el Mar Bàltic, el Mar Negre i el Mar Caspi.
Rússia limita amb els països següents (començant pel nord-oest i seguint el sentit antihorari): Noruega, Finlàndia, Estoniana, Letònia, Bielorússia, Lituània, Polònia, Ucraïna, Geòrgia, Azerbaitjan, Kazakhstan, Xina, Mongòlia i Corea del Nord. És junt amb Xina el país que limita amb més països, 14, i el que té les fronteres més extenses.
Com a successor principal de la Unió de Repúbliques Socialistes Soviètiques (URSS), Rússia continua sent un país influent, en particular en la Comunitat d’Estats Independents (CEI), que està integrada per 12 de les antigues 15 Repúbliques Soviètiques, amb l’excepció dels 3 estats bàltics: Estoniana, Letònia i Lituània.
Russia has cut oil supplies to Germany in the past month, its pipeline monopoly said on Friday, blaming the reduction on Russia’s number two oil producer LUKOIL.
Russia cuts oil supplies to Germany.
Oil traders said LUKOIL’s cut was yet another attempt to win better terms from Germany’s monopoly importer of Russian crude, Sunimex, but expected the move to be short-lived and supplies to return to normal in September.
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”We know that they have cut by a third over the past month. We don’t know why it happened,” Transneft Vice-President Sergei Grigoryev told Reuters.
The comment followed a statement on Friday by Germany’s PCK refinery at Schwedt that its supplies from Russia had been reduced in the past few days and it was looking for alternative sources.
”There are talks under way about this,” the plant’s spokesman said on Friday. He said the problem was ”not dramatic” but declined to comment on when it would be resolved.
Russia in January cut crude supplies to Europe following a pricing dispute with Belarus, which halted transit shipments along the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline to Poland and Germany. One fifth of German supplies arrive via Druzhba.
But traders said on Friday the most recent development was linked to a trading dispute involving only LUKOIL.
”It is the same old story. LUKOIL likes having direct supply deals with refiners and doesn’t like selling all its crude to Kishilov,” said a trader with a Russian company.
Sergei Kishilov, a prominent Russian oil industry figure, has run the operations of Sunimex for over 10 years. Sunimex is a monopoly importer of Russian crude to Germany, including to the Schwedt refinery.
LUKOIL declined immediate comment, saying it would issue a statement next week.
Russia was due to supply Germany with 5.45 million tonnes of oil in the third quarter (434,000 barrels per day).
Of that LUKOIL was due to supply 1.8 million tonnes, Surgutneftegas 2.5 million tonnes, Slavneft 192,000 tonnes, Tatneft 300,000 tonnes, small producers some 368,000 tonnes and Belarus 190,000 tonnes.
LUKOIL’s monthly supply plan thereby amounts to around 600,000 tonnes and a cut by a third would represent around 200,000 tonnes or slightly less than 50,000 bpd.
”It has been continuing for some time, not just for one month. But as volumes are not that big other Russians have been supplying extra volumes,” said a trader with a Western major.
”It all looks very funny because this cut has been made public just when the two [LUKOIL and Sunimex] seem to have reached a compromise,” said a trader with a Russian firm. ”I think there will be no problem from September onward.”
A spokeswoman for mineral oil association MWV in Hamburg said the problem should not be exaggerated: ”There certainly was no evidence of lower refinery output in the summer because of this,” she said.
The Schwedt spokesman agreed, saying his company had had early warning about ”swings, not stoppages”, and was able to switch to a pipeline from Rostock on the Baltic Sea.
”It’s no comparison to eight months ago when all supplies stopped without warning,” he said.
The 220,000 barrels-per-day Schwedt is owned by Shell Deutschland, Ruhr Oel, Agip and Total. It accounts for a tenth of German refinery capacity.
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