Belarus to build facility to verify quality of oil coming from Russia

Minsk, December 30 – Neftegaz.RU. Belarus will build a facility as part of the oil pipeline system Druzhba to verify the quality of oil coming from Russia, BelTA learned from First Deputy Director General, Chief Engineer of Gomeltransneft Druzhba Andrei Verigo, who was quoted by the company's newspaper Neftyanaya Magistral.

According to Andrei Verigo, the Belarusian state petrochemical concern Belneftekhim has backed Gomeltransneft Druzhba's proposal to build incoming oil quality verification and flow measurement systems in the Belarusian section of the Druzhba system.

The 1st stage of the project will be implemented in 2020. A facility to check oil coming from Russia will be built at the 106th km of the Unecha-Mozyr oil pipeline. Earlier BelTA quoted Belneftekhim Deputy Chairman Vladimir Sizov as saying the decision on building a facility like that will be made by the end of 2019. The amount of required investments was not specified.

On 19 April 2019 Belneftekhim registered a massive decrease in the quality of the Russian oil mixture Urals coming via the oil pipeline system Druzhba. The concentration of chlororganic compounds in oil exceeded standard thresholds dozens of times over.

A number of countries stopped taking and processing Russian oil as a result. Both Belarusian oil refineries – Naftan and Mozyr Oil Refinery – were forced to reduce their workload and suffered financial losses. Damage was also caused to the pipeline system.

Andrei Verigo was previously quoted as saying that the situation around polluted Russian oil had prompted adjustments in efforts to ensure safe and reliable operation of the Belarusian part of the oil pipeline system Druzhba.

The construction of an incoming oil quality verification and flow measurement facility would provide additional guarantees of safety and control of the amount and quality of incoming oil.