PCK refinery in Schwedt successfully starts the year without Russian oil

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Control room of the PCK refinery

Photo: Jörg Carstensen / dpa

After almost 60 years, the PCK refinery in Schwedt, Brandenburg, is no longer supplied with Russian crude oil from the Druzhba pipeline.

The plant with 1200 employees now gets other crude oil via the port of Rostock.

So far, this means a capacity utilization of only around 50 percent.

Large parts of eastern Germany are supplied with fuel from Schwedt.

A "first milestone" has been reached, said PCK boss Ralf Schairer optimistically on the second day without Russian oil.

The conversion of the system works.

"The refinery is running stably, of course with less throughput." Even if not all questions have been clarified so far, "a reasonable status quo has been reached that can be worked with," said Brandenburg Economics Minister Jörg Steinbach (SPD), who commitment of the PCK employees.

Since Germany stopped all crude oil imports from Russia at the beginning of the year because of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, alternatives had to be found for the refinery.

Since the oil embargo from January 1, the refinery has been supplied solely via the approximately 200-kilometer-long pipeline from Rostock to Schwedt, which has never been running at full capacity.

The preparations for the maximum operation of this pipeline have all been made, said Schairer.

He is also confident that additional oil will come through other routes.

Economics Minister Steinbach said: "Additional deliveries that have been announced from Poland and possibly from Kazakhstan must now follow as quickly as possible."

In addition to the tanker oil from the port of Rostock, crude oil is to be brought in via the port of Gdansk.

According to the Federal Ministry of Economics, this should be enough to use 70 percent of PCK's capacity.

dab/dpa