PKN ORLEN secures crude oil supplies from non-Russian sources
As much as 90 per cent of the crude oil processed by the ORLEN Group already comes from countries other than Russia. This is the outcome of intensive supply diversification efforts pursued by the company since 2015. Having joined forces with trustworthy trading partners, PKN ORLEN is now fully prepared to give up on Russian oil altogether if further import sanctions are imposed.
- The ORLEN Group’s expansion goes hand in hand with improved feedstock and fuel supply security in Poland and in the region as a whole. In both cases, diversification of supplies of crude oil and other energy feedstocks is the key. To that end, over the past years we have focused on building strong global partnerships, which have opened new sources of oil imports to our production plants in Poland, Lithuania and the Czech Republic. In this way, we have managed to break our long-standing dependence on Russian crude, which accounted for almost 100 per cent of the feedstock supplied to the ORLEN Group’s refineries still in 2015. Currently, the share of Russian oil represents only 10 per cent - said Daniel Obajtek, President of the Management Board of PKN ORLEN.
PKN ORLEN’s contract with Rosneft for the supply of 3.6 million tonnes of crude oil per year expired at the end of January 2023, and Russian crude has been replaced by oil imports from other sources. Consequently, as much as 90 per cent of the crude processed at ORLEN Group refineries will come non-Russian sources as of February 2023. That being said, the ORLEN Group is now fully prepared to operate without Russian crude supplies, so the imposition of any new sanctions on oil imports from Russia would not affect the Company’s operations in any way.
The ban on imports of Russian crude to the European Union, which came into force on December 5th 2022, applies only to shipments by sea. PKN ORLEN had already stopped the imports of Russian crude by sea after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, which was possible thanks to a consistently delivered diversification strategy and the Company’s successful efforts to find new trading partners. As a result, upon Russian aggression against Ukraine, PKN ORLEN was able to quickly minimise its imports of Russian oil.
In line with the adopted diversification strategy, PKN ORLEN is expanding its imports portfolio based on crude oil supplies from the North Sea, West Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, as well as the Persian Gulf and Mexico. Today, the Company’s key partner is Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer. In 2022, PKN ORLEN and Saudi Aramco signed a strategic partnership agreement which provides, among other things, for crude supplies sufficient to cover about 45 per cent of the total demand of all refineries across the ORLEN Group.