Hungarian oil firm MOL agrees to store 100 kilotons of contaminated Russian oil

Hungarian multinational oil and gas company MOL will start taking clean Russian oil later this week via a major pipeline after agreeing to store 100,000 tonnes of contaminated crude, the company said on Tuesday. Russian crude flows to Europe through the major Druzhba pipeline were suspended last month due to contamination, sending shockwaves through global oil markets.

Dividing up the contaminated oil between European refiners served by the pipeline is a key step before flows of clean oil can resume. "To solve the international issues caused by contaminated crude oil, MOL agreed to take over and store 100 kilotons of contaminated oil. There are no major technical issues," the company said.