Kazakhstan has halted crude oil supplies to Slovakia and Hungary via the Druzhba pipeline amid a trade dispute with Ukraine, prompting LUKoil to intervene to compensate for the loss, traders said Tuesday. LUKoil will reroute some 300,000 metric tons of Urals crude scheduled for loading from the Polish port of Gdansk in February to Slovakia and Hungary.
Sources also said the development followed a move by Ukraine to scrap a crude transit deal with Kazakhstan for 2010 in retaliation for Kazakhstan suspending crude deliveries via Ukraine last year.
