Croatia’s oil pipeline operator Janaf has signed a transport agreement with Hungarian oil and gas company MOL for shipments of 500,000 tonnes of crude on the Adriatic pipeline, the company announced on Monday.
The agreement is valid until 31 March 2023 and the two companies also signed a deal to allow MOL to store about 149,000 tonnes of crude at Omisalj and Sisak in the same period.
President of the Management Board, Stjepan Adanić and Board member Vladislav Veselic underlined in the press release that the new contract contributes to the energy stability and energy independence of the European Union.
The announcement comes after a turbulent period, as from this year, Croatia plans to more than double the transit fee on the Adriatic oil pipeline. The move drew criticism from the Hungarian government, which considers this “an abuse of Croatia’s monopoly”. The Hungarian government urged the European Commission to intervene in relation to Croatia’s plans to increase the transit fee.
As a land-locked country, Hungary is largely reliant on imports to cover its energy needs. If the Druzhba pipeline is shut down because of the war in Ukraine, the Adriatic pipeline remains Hungary’s only import route. However, the Adriatic pipeline currently has less capacity than the combined consumption of Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, explained Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade in a recent interview.
He argued that the European Commission should put pressure on Croatia to expand the capacity of the pipeline and pointed out that increasing the transit fees in a situation like the current one should be rejected at the European level, as it is clearly an “abuse of the situation triggered by the war.”
