Europe’s dependence on a 58-year-old Soviet pipeline and millions of barrels a day of Russian crude has pushed the region’s leaders to resist an oil embargo as refiners from Shell to France’s TotalEnergies hunt for alternative supplies.
While Europe’s reliance on Russian natural gas has become a source of growing angst, the continent also depends on Russia for 30 per cent of its oil, which has been allowed to continue flowing despite the invasion of Ukraine.
Most of the oil and associated petroleum products come by sea, but the biggest single flow of Russian crude into Europe — almost 1mn barrels a day — comes via the 5,000km Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline from Almetyevsk in central Russia to refineries in Belarus, Poland, Germany, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary.