By Marek Strzelecki
WARSAW (Reuters) – Germany needs to speed up the sale of Russian energy group Rosneft’s majority stake in the Schwedt refinery for Poland to deliver in full on a crucial supply deal for the refinery, Poland’s climate minister said on Thursday.
PCK Schwedt, which has traditionally supplied 90% of the fuel used in Germany’s capital Berlin, was operating at 50-60% capacity this spring after Germany stopped oil supplies from Russia due to the Ukraine war.
In December, Poland and Germany agreed to cooperate on supplying Schwedt via pipelines from the Polish port of Gdansk, while Polish refiner PKN Orlen expressed an interest in buying the refinery.
But Warsaw made a removal of Rosneft from the refinery’s ownership structure a condition for long-term oil shipments.
Germany in April approved a law that would allow a quick sale of Rosneft’s stake in the refinery, but it’s unclear when or how this might happen.
Rosneft sued Berlin in October for taking control of its German unit, and its law firm said in April the German government’s actions amounted to “expropriation”.
German economy minister Robert Habeck “has shown he’s determined to get rid of Russians and I very much believe his determination is genuine, but this process is taking terribly long and that’s not satisfying,” Anna Moskwa told Reuters.
“I think that this determination should be proven by the pace of the process and that’s what we’re waiting for, but in fact we’re not able to more on the Polish side.”
In the meantime, Poland is offering only irregular slots for tankers that transport non-Russian oil for Schwedt into the terminal in Gdansk and the German refinery can’t run at full capacity.
“We’ve got modern infrastructure and it’s being expanded. We’re ready to cooperate but obviously without Russians,” Moskwa said.
Schwedt’s other shareholders are oil majors Shell and Eni.
(Reporting by Marek Strzelecki and Kuba Stezycki; Additional reporting by Christoph Steitz; Editing by Mark Potter)
