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Refinery in Schwedt: switch sources of supply
Photo: Christophe Gateau / dpa
At the beginning of the year, Germany stopped all crude oil imports from Russia.
The reason is the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
An EU embargo against Russian oil arriving by tanker has been in effect since December 5th.
Deliveries via the Druzhba pipeline have now also been abandoned.
The East German refineries in Schwedt in Brandenburg and Leuna in Saxony-Anhalt therefore have to change their sources of supply.
The federal government and the state of Brandenburg still consider the supply to be secure.
The Federal Government Commissioner for Eastern Europe, Carsten Schneider, even sees the change as an opportunity.
There are additional public investments of more than one billion euros for this, said the SPD politician.
»We are thus freeing East Germany from its dependency on Russia and completing another piece of German unity.«
The oil embargo is intended to make it more difficult for Russian President Vladimir Putin to finance the war against Ukraine.
From the beginning of February, the European Union no longer wants to purchase processed products such as diesel or kerosene from Russia.
In addition, the EU wants to enforce a price cap for oil that Russia supplies to third countries such as India or China.
In return, Moscow bans the sale of oil to countries that have decided on the price cap, effective February 1.
Germany is not affected by this because of its own waiver.
Nevertheless, the embargo policy is controversial.
Critics consider them ineffective.
In East Germany there were also concerns that Russian oil could not be completely replaced.
The Druzhba had been the main supply line since the early 1960s, i.e. back in the days of the GDR.
According to the PCK refinery Schwedt, a total of more than a billion tons of crude oil flowed from Russia.
Tanker oil from Kazakhstan and Gdansk
Now PCK (about 1,200 employees) is supposed to work with tanker oil, some of which comes from the port of Rostock and some from the Polish port of Danzig.
In addition, Kazakhstan is to supply crude oil.
The plant in Leuna (about 600 employees) also relies on deliveries via Gdansk.
However, both refineries are expecting lower utilization than before for the time being.
The contractually guaranteed oil quantities are not yet sufficient, the central German refinery Leuna recently explained.
For PCK, an initial utilization of 70 percent is assumed.
PCK boss Ralf Schairer spoke of "volumes for the minimum utilization of the refinery" in January, but added: "I am sure that we can operate the refinery and supply the region with fuel and heat".
The Eastern Commissioner Schneider referred to a special program for the eastern German refinery sites and the energy port of Rostock.
Among other things, the investments are intended to expand a pipeline from Rostock to Schwedt, which has only had a small capacity so far.
The long-term goal is to convert production to green hydrogen, which is considered a climate-friendly form of energy.
Saxony-Anhalt's Energy Minister Armin Willingmann supports this.
"We have to put a very, very strong focus on hydrogen in Germany overall," said the SPD politician.
"The quicker we set up sustainable industrial production, the sooner we can achieve a secure, inexpensive and therefore competitive supply for our energy-intensive industries in the country." There are promising approaches for this, also in Leuna.
lov/dpa