Russia's Transneft has received requests from Poland and Germany for oil in 2023, the state oil pipeline monopoly's head told Rossiya-24 TV, adding that supplies via the Druzhba pipeline's southern spur are expected to hold steady next year.
The European Union has pledged to stop buying Russian oil via maritime routes from Dec. 5, with Western nations also imposing price caps on Russian crude oil, but the Druzhba pipeline remains exempt from sanctions.
Transneft's comments are at odds with suggestions last month that Poland aimed to abandon a deal to buy Russian crude.
Sources familiar with the talks had told Reuters that Poland was seeking German support for EU sanctions on the Polish-German section of the Druzhba pipeline so that Warsaw could abandon a deal to buy Russian oil next year without paying penalties.
"They announced they would not take oil from Russia from Jan. 1. And now we have received requests from Polish consumers: give us 3 million tonnes next year, and 360,000 tonnes for December, and Germany has already submitted a request for the first quarter," Transneft head Nikolay Tokarev was quoted as saying by TASS on Tuesday.
He also said that the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk has expanded its export capacity for low-sulfur oil to 40 million tons a year, Daily Sabah reports.
