Kremlin continues to earn billions of dollars from oil transit through Ukraine
7 February 12:06
In 2024, the transit of Russian oil through the Ukrainian pipeline system decreased significantly, but still brought the Kremlin quite a bit of revenue. This was reported by Komersant ukrainskyi with reference to RBC-Ukraine.
Thus, the volume of Russian oil transit through Ukraine in 2024 amounted to 11.5 million tons (or 230.3 thousand barrels per day), which is 15% less than in the previous year.
The distribution of supplies among European countries was as follows:
- Hungary – 4.8 million tons (42% of the total);
- Slovakia – 4 million tons (13% drop in imports);
- Czech Republic – 2.7 million tons.
The average price of Russian Urals oil in 2024 for tax purposes was $67.85 per barrel. This brought Russia a daily profit of $15.6 million, which in annual terms is approximately $5.7 billion.
Interestingly, Russia used to receive a similar amount – about $5 billion – from gas transit through Ukraine to Eastern Europe, but this contract expired on January 1, 2025, and Ukraine refused to renew it.
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“Druzhba continues
Oil is transported through the Druzhba pipeline, which was built in Soviet times. Its southern branch connects Russian oil fields with refineries in Hungary and Slovakia (controlled by MOL) and the Czech Republic (controlled by PKN Orlen).
As for the northern branch of the Druzhba pipeline, which runs through Belarus to Poland and Germany, these countries stopped buying Russian oil in 2023 due to the war against Ukraine. Germany is currently using this route to receive Kazakh oil, with deliveries totaling 1.5 million tons last year.
In December 2024, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal explained that Ukraine was forced to continue transiting Russian oil due to its obligations under the European Energy Charter and the Association Agreement. At the same time, the Ukrainian side is working to impose full sanctions on Russian energy.
