Russia’s Transneft Reaches First Deal on Dirty Oil Compensation

(Bloomberg) -- Russia’s crude-pipeline operator has agreed to pay its Kazakh counterpart a fixed per-barrel compensation rate of about $15 for oil that was contaminated by chemicals, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

The accord between Transneft PJSC and KazTransOil JSC is the first of its kind related to Russia’s dirty-oil crisis, which became the worst disruption to the country’s crude exports in decades after organic chlorides were found in supplies to European refineries through the Druzhba pipeline and cargoes shipped from the Baltic port of Ust-Luga.

Transneft didn't respond immediately to a request for comment on Thursday. The company has previously said it will compensate all parties affected by the contamination, taking a unified approach to payouts, with no plans for exclusive offers.

The Russian pipeline operator offered a mechanism that simplifies calculations and compensation for losses that Kazakh producers suffered when their crude was mixed with contaminated oil on its way to Ust-Luga, KazTransOil said in the statement on Tuesday, without providing any details of the mechanism. In May, Kazakhstan estimated that about 600,000 tons of its crude was tainted, Interfax reported. That’s about 4.4 million barrels, according to Bloomberg calculations.

The total volume of oil contaminated in the Druzhba incident is 3.03 million tons, including 1.33 million tons of piped oil and 1.7 million tons shipped by tankers from Ust-Luga, Transneft said, citing documents that confirmed delivery of oil. The company expects all parties involved in the Druzhba incident to finalize their estimates for compensation by the end of summer.

Earlier Patrick Pouyanne, chief executive officer for Total SA, whose Leuna refinery was running at half capacity due to the tainted supplies, said the costs of oil contamination faced by his company would be about $15 a barrel.

--With assistance from Dina Khrennikova.

To contact the reporters on this story: Olga Tanas in Moscow at otanas@bloomberg.net;Nariman Gizitdinov in Almaty at ngizitdinov@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Herron at jherron9@bloomberg.net, John Deane

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.