Hungary's MOL turns to seaborne oil as Druzhba pipeline stalls

Hungary's MOL Group has ordered tankers delivering Saudi, Norwegian, Kazakh, Libyan and Russian oil to supply its Hungarian and Slovak refineries. It has also halted diesel supplies to Ukraine as it scrambles to overcome an outage of the Druzhba pipeline, officials said on Wednesday.

MOL's refineries, the last in the EU to receive Russian oil through Druzhba, have struggled since a supply halt. Ukraine says the halt was due to a Russian attack that damaged the pipeline infrastructure on January 27.

The refineries plan to start tapping state oil reserves. The Slovak Government approved on Wednesday a loan of 250,000 tonnes.

Both countries have blamed Ukraine for delaying restarting the flows for political reasons. Hungary and Ukraine have had poor relations since the start of the conflict.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico again accused Ukraine on Wednesday of blackmail. He stated the aim was overturning Hungary's opposition to Ukraine's EU entry.