BUDAPEST (Reuters) -The Druzhba oil pipeline can likely be restarted within a short time as the pipeline itself had not been damaged, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in a video on his Facebook page on Wednesday.
Szijjarto also said, after talking with the Polish foreign minister, that Hungary was waiting further information from Poland on the results of their investigation into the blast that occurred in Poland near the Ukrainian border.
Oil supply to parts of Eastern and Central Europe via a section of the Druzhba pipeline had been temporarily suspended on Tuesday, according to oil pipeline operators in Hungary and Slovakia.
Hungary’s MOL said its Ukrainian partner told the company that a Russian rocket hit a power station close to the Belarus border which provides electricity for a pump station, and this led to the stoppage. Slovakia’s Transpetrol confirmed the suspension as well, citing “technical reasons on the Ukrainian side” but did not specify a rocket strike.
“Its somewhat reassuring news that according to current information, the Druzhba pipeline itself was not damaged, only one element of the infrastructure that operates the pipeline, a power station,” Szijjarto said.
“Repairing that is obviously easier than if the pipeline itself had been hit … so this can likely be done within a short time, depending on the faults uncovered during the technical work.”
Szijjarto reiterated that Hungary had several months of oil reserves and the country’s supply was not at risk.
(Reporting by Krisztina Than and Anita Komuves, Editing by Louise Heavens)
