Based on unofficial sources – albeit sources officers seem to consider – Russia plans to cease the transit of oil from Kazakhstan to Germany through the Druzhba pipeline.
Talking on the sidelines of Astana’s Regional Environmental Summit, Kazakh Vitality Minister Yerlan Akkenzhenov stated he’d obtained information of the obvious looming suspension of Kazakh oil shipments from unofficial sources.
“There have been no official statements from the Russian facet but, however from unofficial sources, we all know it’s true,” he stated. “As of Might, we [will] have zero transit via Atyrau-Samara, onward to the Druzhba pipeline and onward to the Schwedt refinery.”
On April 21, Reuters broke the information in a report citing three trade sources who claimed that beginning on Might 1, Russia would cease Kazakh oil from reaching Germany via the Druzhba pipeline.
Mockingly, the pipeline’s title means “friendship.” It stretches over greater than 4,000 kilometers from jap Russia to Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia, and Germany.
In 2025, Kazakhstan exported 2.146 million metric tons of oil, or round 43,000 barrels per day, via the Druzhba pipeline to Germany, a 44 % enhance over 2024. The oil is processed by Germany’s PCK refinery in Schwedt, one of many nation’s largest and a crucial node supplying gas to the Berlin metropolitan space.
Kazakhstan started supplying the PCK refinery in February 2023 after reaching an settlement with Transneft, Russia’s state-owned oil pipeline firm, to make use of the Druzhba pipeline. Kazakhstan and Germany had settled a deal in December 2022 for Astana to produce Germany with 1.2 million tons in 2023, however Russian allowances had been crucial given the fundamental geography. Earlier than Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the PCK refinery had imported oil from Russia immediately.
Within the years since, provides have elevated but in addition been sometimes interrupted by Ukrainian strikes on Russian segments of the pipeline community.
Akkenzhenov, in his April 22 feedback, instructed that technical difficulties would be the purpose for the approaching halt. “That is almost definitely associated to the latest assaults on Russian infrastructure. I’m making that assumption,” he stated.
When requested concerning the report, Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov stated, “I don’t find out about that. It’s good to contact our related firms. We’ll attempt to make clear the state of affairs, however I’m not ready to offer you any solutions.”
Based on Reuters, “An entire halt would take away about 17% of the as much as 12 million metric tons of oil a 12 months processed” on the PCK refinery.
For Kazakhstan, the direct influence is way much less critical. Akkenzhenov stated Kazakhstan had the flexibility to redistribute the quantity supposed for Germany throughout different routes.
Some 80 % of Kazakhstan’s oil exports are pumped via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which connects the Tengiz oil area on the northeastern coast of the Caspian Sea to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.
That route has additionally suffered from Ukrainian assaults. Earlier this 12 months, the Ukrainian ambassador to the USA stated that Kyiv had obtained a proper demarche from the USA associated to its assaults on CPC oil terminals in Novorossiysk.
The disaster within the Center East, specifically the efficient closure of the Strait of Hormuz since late February, has additionally opened up new potential markets for Kazakhstan. Earlier this month, the South Korean president’s chief of workers, Kang Hoon-sik, stopped off in Kazakhstan amid a visit that additionally touched down in Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar – a tour to safe oil provides. Kang stated Kazakhstan would provide 18 million barrels of crude oil to South Korea.
