Vienna and Bratislava will not build a pipeline to connect with Druzhba

Russia's war against Ukraine has forced Austria to question its dependence on Russian gas and oil.

The Austrian oil and gas concern OMV and the Slovak company Transpetrol have stopped work on the pipeline project, which was planned to transport Russian oil from Druzhba through Slovakia to the Schwechat refinery near Vienna. This was reported by the Austrian public broadcaster ORF on Monday, February 12.

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Vienna and Bratislava will not build a pipeline to connect with Druzhba
Text: Maksym Lipchanskyi, February 12, 2024, 4:57 p.m
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Vienna and Bratislava will not build a pipeline to connect with Druzhba
Photo: Getty Images
The Ministry of Climate Protection of Austria notes that there is no longer a need for the pipeline
Russia's war against Ukraine has forced Austria to question its dependence on Russian gas and oil.

The Austrian oil and gas concern OMV and the Slovak company Transpetrol have stopped work on the pipeline project, which was planned to transport Russian oil from Druzhba through Slovakia to the Schwechat refinery near Vienna. This was reported by the Austrian public broadcaster ORF on Monday, February 12.
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"For almost 20 years, the OMV company, together with the Slovak company Transpetrol, tried to connect the pipeline from Schwechat through Slovakia directly to the Russian network. Now the project has been finally stopped," the message says.

All crude oil transported to Austria now goes to OMV's Schwechat refinery (in the federal state of Lower Austria near Vienna). It goes there through the Adria-Vienna pipeline, which connects the Transalpine pipeline on the Italian-Austrian border with the oil refinery in Schwechat.

A new route directly through Slovakia was initiated by OMV in 2003. It envisaged the construction of only 62 kilometers between Švechat and Bratislava to connect directly to the Russian Druzhba oil pipeline. The route through the Black Sea, the Bosphorus and the Italian Trieste was much longer and more expensive before the oil could finally be processed in Schwechat.

The implementation of the project was delayed, in particular, due to the "energy transition" and the lack of need for another oil pipeline. Russia's war against Ukraine, which began in February 2022, has forced Austria to question its dependence on Russian gas and oil. OMV did not comment on this in response to a media request.

The Ministry of Climate Protection of Austria notes that there is no longer a need for the pipeline. It was planned to transport Russian oil from the Druzhba oil pipeline to the plant in Shvekhat. However, from February 2023, Austria will no longer import oil from Russia.

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