Ukraine increases oil transit to Europe by 7% in 2013

Public joint-stock company Ukrtransnafta, a monopoly on oil transportation in the country, in 2013 increased oil transit by 7% or 1.02 million tonnes, to 15.577 million tonnes, the press service of the company has said.

The company said that the volume of oil transportation through the company's pipelines to Ukrainian oil refineries fell by 25.4% or 674 million tonnes in 2013, to 1.977 million tonnes.

Thus, total oil pumping by Ukrtransnafta last year came to 17.554 million tonnes, which is 2% up on 2012 (17.208 million tonnes).

In December 2013, oil transit via Ukraine amounted to 1.336 million tonnes and supplies to oil refineries totaled 171,000 tonnes.

In October 2013, Ukrtransnafta Board Chairman Oleksandr Lazorko forecasted that oil transit through Ukraine to Europe in 2013 would increase by 6.8% compared to 2012, to 15.6 million tonnes.

According to him, the growth of transit became possible due to the transportation of additional volumes of Russian oil to the oil refinery in Kralupy and Litvinov (the Czech Republic), which for the last two years had not been pumped through Ukraine, but been delivered by sea through the port of Novorossiysk.

Ukraine plans to pump 19.079 million tonnes of oil in 2014 using its trunk pipelines, according to a revised draft law on the national budget for 2014.

It is planned to pump 15 million tonnes of oil using the Druzhba pipeline, while 4.079 million tonnes of oil will be supplied to Ukrainian oil refineries.

Ukrtransnafta in 2012 reduced oil pumping by 31.7% or 7.994 million tonnes, to 17.208 million tonnes. The company cut oil transit to Europe by 18.1% compared to 2011, to 14.557 million tonnes.

Ukrtransnafta operates the oil transportation system of Ukraine. Naftogaz Ukrainy manages 100% of its shares.

The system of the trunk oil pipelines of Ukrtransnafta, which have a diameter of 159 to 1,220 millimeters and a total length of 4,700 kilometers, runs across 19 regions of Ukraine.