Refinery news: Belarus' Naftan receives first batches of Johan Sverdrup crude from Norway

London — Belarus' Naftan refinery said it received its first ever delivery of Norwegian crude on Sunday, with around 3,500 mt having arrived so far via rail from the port of Klaipeda on the Baltic Sea, adding that it started processing the oil on Monday. A full batch of 86,000 mt, which was delivered by the tanker Breiviken to the port Klaipeda on the Baltic Sea, will arrive within the next two weeks at the refinery, it said. The crude delivered to Naftan is from the newly launched Johan Sverdrup field.

Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko said the country has no plans to suspend Russian crude deliveries, but added that it is in talks with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the US to diversify its supplies, the Belta news agency reported last week.

The country has already approached other Baltic states, as well as Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Poland in recent weeks, with the aim of limiting Russian oil deliveries to just 30%-40% of total imports.

Lukashenko was quoted as saying that alternative crude could be delivered to Belarus by several routes -- via Ukraine from the Black Sea, via the Baltic ports, or by reversing one of the three trunks of the Druzhba pipeline to Gdansk, also on the Baltic Sea.

Belarus has in the past used Ukraine's Odessa-Brody pipeline, which was reversed in late 2010 to take oil to Brody, where it links with a section of the Druzhba pipeline that flows to Belarus and to the Mozyr refinery.

The ongoing dispute over supply terms with Russia led to a brief suspension of supplies in early January, when the two refineries reduced their runs to a technological minimum, according to Naftan.

Since then, Mikhail Gutseriev's Safmar Group has agreed to supply crude to Belarus from Russia.

Source: Naftan, Belta