The Druzhba pipeline - once a symbol of friendship, now a bone of contention

62 years after its commissioning, the Druzhba pipeline is facing a turning point, possibly its end. The discontinuation of Kazakh oil transit to the Petrochemical Combine (PCK) Schwedt refinery in the eastern German state of Brandenburg since 1 May, the Ukrainian drone attacks on the Druzhba pipeline in 2025 and 2026 and the EU phase-out legislation planned for the end of 2027 have reduced what was once the most important export system for Russian crude oil to Europe to a rump operation. Deliveries for Hungary and Slovakia in 2025 amounted to 9.25 million tonnes with a market value of over EUR 3.5 billion. This corresponds to a slump of around two thirds, reports the Qatari news channel Al Jazeera. A calculation by the Finnish Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) shows: The southern Druzhba volume now accounts for only 2 to 3% of Russian oil revenues. Origin as a Soviet prestige project The political starting point for the pipeline was Prague. On December 18, 1958, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) of the socialist states in Europe decided to build an international crude oil pipeline because rail transport could no longer meet the growing demand for oil in Eastern Europe. Construction work began on December 10, 1960 in the Carpathian Mountains. Pipes came from Soviet and Polish production, fittings from Czechoslovakia, pumps from the GDR and automation technology from Hungary. Commissioning took place in stages. The oil reached Bratislava in what was then Czechoslovakia in 1962, Hungary in September 1963, Poland in November 1963 and the GDR in December 1963. The Soviet leadership inaugurated the entire system on October 15, 1964, and regular oil transport from the Volga region began on November 4, 1964. According to contemporary figures, the construction cost around 400 million roubles. At the official Soviet exchange rate of 0.90 roubles per US dollar, 400 million roubles were equivalent to around 444 million US dollars. The exchange rate was set politically by the state bank; the rouble was not convertible and was worth considerably less on black markets. Estimates by the American secret service CIA put the Soviet gross domestic product in 1964 at around 250 billion roubles – the pipeline thus cost 0.16% of the annual economic output. 730,000 tons of steel pipes were laid. The total length of the pipeline system is 8,900 km. The hydraulic design is 1.2 to 1.4 million barrels per day, i.e. 60 to 70 million tons per year. On the Belarusian-Polish section, up to 80 million tons even flowed. The Russian news agency TASS names a maximum annual volume of around 100 million tons for the entire branched network. The mega-pipeline begins in Almetyevsk in the Muslim republic of Tatarstan. Crude oil is then collected from Western Siberia, the Volga-Ural region and the Caspian region. The pipeline first runs to Mosyr in Belarus and forks there. The northern leg runs via Poland to Schwedt: the total length to Germany is 5,327 km. The southern line runs via Brody and Uzhhorod in the Ukraine to Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Seven national operators With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, centralized control also ceased to exist. After that, seven national operators were responsible for the pipeline system: Transneft Druzhba in Russia, Gomeltransneft Druzhba in Belarus, Ukrtransnafta in Ukraine, PERN in Poland, Transpetrol in Slovakia, Mero ČR in the Czech Republic and MOL in Hungary.  Within the 67,000 km long Transneft network, Druzhba is now just one route among several.  Transneft is the Russian state monopoly company for crude oil and petroleum product pipelines. It was founded in 1993 from the Soviet Ministry of Oil Pipeline Construction. Nikolai Tokarev has been Chairman of the Management Board since 2007. According to the latest figures from Transneft at the end of March 2025, turnover rose by 1.2% to 1.44 trillion. roubles, the equivalent of 16.3 billion euros. Net profit, on the other hand, slumped by 19.6% to 226 billion roubles, around 2.6 billion euros, mainly due to the rising tax burden. Since 1 January 2025, Transneft has been paying 40% tax on profits, limited until the end of 2030. In addition, the Russian business newspaper Kommersant analyzes the consequences of sanctions, falling cargo throughput and the central bank's high key interest rate. In 2024, Transneft transported 447 million tons of crude oil, including 435 million tons of Russian oil and 12 million tons of Kazakh oil. For 2025, Group CEO Nikolai Tokarev expected a slight decline in pumping volumes; for the KTK pipeline (Caspian Pipeline Consortium), he anticipated 74.4 million tons of export oil (TASS). The 1,510 km pipeline runs from the large Kazakh fields of Tengiz and Karachaganak through southern Russia to the Black Sea terminal near Novorossiysk and is the most important export channel for Kazakh oil to the global market. In 2026, the volume is expected to remain at the level of 2025. Druzhba after the embargo: from main line to special case With Regulation 2022/879 amending Regulation 833/2014, in force since June 4, 2022, the European Union imposed an embargo on Russian crude oil by sea from December 5, 2022. Pipeline deliveries via Druzhba were permitted in Article 3 as an indefinite exception for the landlocked states of Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic - until the Council "decides otherwise". The 11th sanctions package later also explicitly barred the legal possibility of importing Russian pipeline oil to Germany and Poland.  In April 2025, the Czech Republic became the third country to end the supply via Druzhba after the Transalpine Pipeline Plus project was completed. With an investment of 1.6 billion Czech crowns, around 65 million euros, fully financed by the state pipeline operator Mero ČR, the country doubled the capacity of the transalpine oil pipeline from Trieste via Bavaria to 8 million tons per year. Prime Minister Petr Fiala declared on April 17, 2025: "We have completed another step on the way to our energy independence." The first delivery was Norwegian Johan Sverdrup crude oil, documented a report by the energy analysis platform Grosswald. Druschba's last EU customers Originally, Druzhba supplied six countries directly: Belarus via the Mosyr refinery, Poland via Płock and the connection to Schwedt, Germany via Schwedt and historically Leuna, the Czech Republic via the Litvínov and Kralupy refineries, Slovakia via Bratislava and Hungary via Százhalombatta.Germany has not processed Russian oil since January 2023, but purchased Kazakh crude oil via the Druzhba system until April 2026, and the Polish state-owned company Orlen terminated the last relevant Druzhba contract in February 2023. Warsaw has not used Russian pipeline oil since then. The Polish section of the Druzhba remains technically in operation, but is only used for the transit of Kazakh oil to the Schwedt region and for reverse logistics from the port of Gdansk. According to calculations by the Finnish institute CREA, the Druzhba deliveries to Hungary and Slovakia brought Russia oil sales worth 13 billion euros between February 2022 and December 2024. Around 5.4 billion euros of this flowed directly into the budget as tax revenue. In August 2025, the five largest EU importers of Russian fossil fuels paid a total of 979 million euros to Russia - Hungary 416 million euros (of which 176 million euros crude oil), Slovakia 276 million euros (of which 204 million euros crude oil). Schwedt after May 1  Germany's special position in the Druschba system depends on one location: the Petrochemical Combine (PCK) Schwedt. The refinery has a capacity of around 12 million tons per year and supplies around 90% of the Berlin-Brandenburg fuel market. Schwedt will no longer process Russian oil from January 2023. It will then be supplied via the port of Rostock, with an annual capacity of 7 million tons, the Polish port of Gdansk and via Kazakh oil, which the pipeline company KazTransOil routes to Germany through the Druzhba system. In 2025, Astana supplied 2.15 million tons - 44 % more than in 2024 and around 17% of the total volume.1,200 people work directly at the refinery and thousands more in regional petrochemical logistics. On December 23, 2025, the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Federal Ministry of Economics extended the job security for PCK employees until June 30, 2026 - part of the future package for eastern German refinery sites launched in September 2022. Federal Minister of Finance Lars Klingbeil assured: "The people in the Uckermark can rely on the federal government." Economics Minister Reiche will visit the site on May 11, 2026, until then State Secretary for Energy Frank Wetzel is negotiating additional supplies from Gdansk with Warsaw. On April 22, 2026, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak announced that Russia would stop the transit of Kazakh crude oil via Druzhba to Germany on May 1, 2026 - officially with reference to "technical capacities". Brandenburg's Minister President Dietmar Woidke explained that PCK could cushion May with reserves and a capacity utilization of around 80%. Federal Minister of Economics Katherina Reiche is quoted in the Handelsblatt. She „assumes that production in Schwedt will continue“. Expiry of the EU exemption by 2027 The political end of the Druzhba derogation has begun. The European Commission had initially announced the presentation of legislation to phase out Russian oil imports for April 15, 2026 - three days after the Hungarian elections. Due to the Iran crisis and the drone dispute, the date was postponed in March 2026, and a new date has not been set. EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen stated on December 3, 2025: "We need to stop buying Russian oil as soon as possible, by the end of 2027 at the latest. "Three scenarios are plausible for the future of Druzhba oil supplies. Firstly, the orderly phasing out of Russian oil supplies by the end of 2027. One success factor for this is the Adriatic pipeline. It runs from the Croatian deep-sea port of Omišalj on the island of Krk through Croatia to Hungary and Slovakia, where it reaches the same refineries (Százhalombatta near Budapest, Slovnaft in Bratislava) that currently process Russian Druzhba oil. The Hungarian state oil company MOL and the Croatian oil supplier Janaf  started another ten-month series of stress tests on March 11, 2026 after tests failed in September 2025, reported the industry service Ceenenergynews. JANAF states an annual capacity of 11 to 15 million tons, while MOL has never transported more than 2.2 million tons. According to the group, 14 million tons per year (40,000 tons per day) would be required to fully cover both MOL refineries. If JANAF can prove the required 14 million tons per year in the ongoing stress tests, Hungary can expect a faster exit from Russian oil supplies under the newly elected Prime Minister Peter Magyar. Hungary could do without Russian oil as early as 2026 or early 2027, not just at the end of 2027.secondly, the Druzhba pipeline could be damaged by drone attacks to such an extent that operations come to a standstill before the end of 2027.thirdly, a peace scenario with a political solution for the pipeline. Theoretically, the Druzhba could be used to reactivate the Schwedt site with Russian oil. The probability is considered low. This article first appeared in the exclusive newsletter of the German-Russian Chamber of Commerce Abroad The post The Druzhba pipeline - once a symbol of friendship, now a bone of contention appeared first on ostwirtschaft.de.