'A completely false claim, an utter distortion of the truth' – Croatian PM rebuts Orbán on Adria pipeline capacity

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković responded to the Hungarian government and MOL by saying that the claim that Janaf is not fulfilling its obligations in terms of crude oil supply is untrue, as is the claim that it only has small-diameter pipelines and therefore the Croatian pipeline capacity cannot meet Hungarian needs.

"This is a completely false claim from the Hungarian authorities and Mol, and an utter distortion of the facts and the truth. Janaf has the necessary capacity and capabilities to supply Hungarian refineries – both the one in Százhalombatta and the one in Bratislava – with more than enough crude oil,"

Plenković said on Monday, according to the Croatian news portal Dnevnik.

"Our total crude oil transport capacity exceeds the maximum operating capacity of both refineries, the one in Hungary and the one in Slovakia," said the Croatian Prime Minister. He added that he did not understand how the US could have accepted the Hungarian government's false claim as an argument when, as a result of last week's talks in Washington, Donald Trump granted Orbán an exemption from US sanctions on Russian oil.

As a result of the exemption, MOL does not have to stop importing Russian crude oil. However, there has been some debate about how long the exemption will last: Viktor Orbán and Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó claim that the exemption is open-ended, while the US government has told Telex in writing and has said to the Western media that Hungary was granted a one-year exemption.

Representatives of Janaf and MOL held a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the new oil supply agreement, according to a statement sent to our editorial office by the Croatian company.

Tamás Pletser, Erste's oil and gas industry analyst, told Telex that the Trump-Orbán agreement definitely means that MOL has been given time to wean itself off Russian crude oil, but it seems certain that Hungary will have to find an alternative sooner or later. One such alternative could be the Adria or Janaf pipeline from Croatia, but MOL and the operator of the pipeline, Janaf, have differing opinions as to whether this pipeline can provide for the country's overall needs.

Despite this, in its Tuesday statement Janaf wrote that they had met with representatives of the MOL Group – the purpose of the meeting being “to discuss the current situation and further steps to be taken in relation to a new oil supply agreement for the forthcoming period.”

Speaking last week, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said that the Adria pipeline cannot solve Hungary's oil supply problems.

Mol executives are sometimes more optimistic about the possibilities, although while Szijjártó and Orbán flew to Washington last week, Mol and Janaf had another falling out after the Croatian company failed to deliver a 58,000-ton shipment to MOL's refinery in Bratislava on time.

Incidentally, MOL quickly changed its opinion on the matter: in its statement to shareholders last week, it first wrote that it could see its refineries being supplied via the Adria pipeline, but then changed its mind.

However, as was mentioned in the latest episode of Telex's podcast Téma, the debate about the Adria pipeline's performance is largely theoretical, because the parties have never tried to transport enough oil through the pipeline to replace Russian sources, and whether the pipeline was capable of doing so would only be revealed if they were to try.