A report by a Helsinki-based think tank said that the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, all landlocked countries which received special EU dispensation to continue with imports of pipelined Russian oil until they could secure alternative sources, have made little effort to wean themselves off supplies via the Druzhba pipeline from Siberia.
The profits that Russian companies like Gazprom make on oil are fed back into the Russian war machine.
“The Czech Republic has spent more than €7 billion on Russian oil and gas, more than five times more money than it has provided in assistance to Ukraine,” said a report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), an independent, Helsinki-based think tank.
The CREA report, published on October 14, put the Czech Republic in the spotlight for its purchases and ignited a controversy.
The country’s Ministry of Industry pointed out that the issue is not just a Czech one.
The ministry said Polish energy firm Orlen has been making money on oil imported from Russia at prices as low as $36 per barrel, much lower than market rates.
Orlen owns Unipetrol, the largest refinery in the Czech Republic, which was the biggest importer in that country of piped oil over the period covered by the report, stretching from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 until September 2024.
While the Czech government makes money on VAT and duty on the fuel sold, the Polish government, which has a 49.9% stake in Warsaw-listed Orlen, took a share of the company’s high dividends in 2022 and 2023.
The Czech Ministry of Industry told the Politico news website that it was making efforts to “cease its dependence on Russian fossil fuels.”
The ministry referred to investments in pipelines to the Adriatic coast, from where alternative supplies could be shipped in. However, officials said they "could not interfere with the purchasing decisions of private companies like Orlen Unipetrol."
Daniel Obajtek, the chairman of Orlen between 2018 and February 2024, appointed by the previous Law and Justice government, deflected responsibility for Unipetrol’s reliance on Russian supplies.
He told news website Onet that during his stewardship of the company, he had repeatedly stressed that investment in the transport infrastructure for oil “depends on the Czech government.”
The CREA report found that the EU as a whole was the fifth-largest purchaser of Russian hydrocarbons, with France and Italy making up the top five importers in the bloc along with the Czechs, Hungarians and Slovaks.
