MOSCOW/LONDON - Trading houses Vitol, Glencore and Trafigura are caught in the crossfire between Russian oil producers and Western buyers as the latter refuse to take contaminated crude that traders bought from companies in Russia.
The three trading firms bought the cargoes in the Russian Baltic port of Ust-Luga from Russian producers such as Rosneft and Surgut, as well as Kazakh firms. The contamination was discovered at the end of April, forcing Russia to shut the Druzhba pipeline. The line pumps 1 million barrels per day of crude - 1 percent of global supply. Druzhba serves Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Ukraine and Belarus.
A long outage could force refineries in Europe to cut operations steeply while triggering claims by Western buyers against Russian producers, who could in turn file claims against Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft for lost profit. “I asked my refining manager at what discount he would take such a cargo,” a trader with a Western major that declined a cargo from Ust-Luga said.
Neither the Russian government nor Transneft would say whether Russian oil producers might receive compensation, which in turn could be provided to Western buyers.On Wednesday, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Peskov, declined to answer a question on whether Transneft should compensate Russian producers.