European Commission urged Russia to settle dispute over oil pipeline

BRUSSELS, Jan 9: The European Commission urged Russia and Belarus today to settle quickly a dispute over an oil pipeline that is hitting supplies to several European Union countries, saying Moscow risked being seen as unreliable.

A spokesman for EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said the row and a similar dispute over gas a year ago, involving Russia and Ukraine, ''are not going to do good for Russia's reputation as a reliable supplier'' of energy.

Commission spokesman Ferran Tarradellas Espuny said Piebalgs had called on ''the two parties involved to rapidly find a mutually acceptable solution and to restore oil supplies to the European Union immediately.'' ''There have been oil supply impacts as well coming from the south line of the Druzhba pipeline,'' he said, adding that Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic had now been affected, as well as Germany and Poland, which are on the pipeline's northern leg.

Russia, the world's second largest oil exporter, has accused Belarus of stealing oil from Druzhba, a pipeline carrying two fifths of its total exports. The dispute has escalated after the two countries imposed punitive oil levies on each other.

The Commission has called a meeting on Thursday of EU oil supply experts to discuss the situation, Tarradellas Espuny told reporters at a daily Commission briefing.

The pipeline has a capacity of over 2 million barrels per day of which some 1.4-1.6 million bpd go directly to consumers in the EU, representing about 12.5 per cent of oil consumption in the bloc.

Reuters