Fico: Transporting Oil via Adria Will Be Much More Expensive Than via Druzhba

     Bratislava, 18 February (TASR) - Transporting oil via the Adria pipeline will be more than five times more expensive for Slovakia than transporting it via the Druzhba pipeline, through which oil hasn't flowed for more than two weeks, stated Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) following the government meeting on Wednesday along with representatives of the Slovnaft refinery, adding that purchased oil will also be more expensive.
        At its meeting, the government declared a state of emergency in relation to oil supplies and agreed to release 250,000 tonnes of oil from state material reserves for the refinery.
        "The catch is that, first, we haven't tested the full capacity of the Adria pipeline, and secondly, if we paid or are paying a transit fee of just over €1 per tonne of oil per 100 kilometres, in the case of Croatia, that's more than €5. The tariff fees are five times higher if we transport oil through Adria to Austria, Hungary and Slovakia," stated the prime minister.
        "If [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy definitively stops oil flows through Ukraine, we'll pay more for the commodity, we'll pay more for tariff fees just because President Zelenskyy is playing some games here," said Fico, noting that the oil in the pipeline on Ukrainian territory is the property of the Slovnaft refinery.
        The prime minister expressed his suspicion that Russian oil isn't flowing through the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia "for political reasons". "I can absolutely imagine that President Zelenskyy has made another decision [as with gas - ed.note]. Our intelligence reports indicate that the damaged section [of the oil pipeline] cited by the Ukrainian government has been repaired and that Russian oil can continue to flow to Slovakia and beyond without any problems," he said.
        "I see this in the context of the election in Hungary. It's enormous pressure on Viktor Orban because we know the Hungarian government's clear position on Ukraine's possible membership of the European Union," opined the Slovak premier.
        According to Fico, President Zelenskyy is risking Slovakia's support when it comes to Ukraine's European prospects. "If our suspicion that this is political blackmail is confirmed, he'll gradually lose our support. A representative of SEPS [the Slovak Electricity Transmission Network] was also present at today's government meeting after I invited him in connection with electricity supplies to Ukraine. Slovakia supplies so-called security electricity supplies in the event of a power outage in Ukraine, when they need Slovak electricity to stabilise their system. In January of this year so much electricity was supplied to Ukraine that it was twice as much as for the whole of 2025," stated Fico, adding that Slovak electricity supplies are probably important for Ukraine's electricity system.
        "However, if President Zelenskyy feels that these electricity supplies are of no value, that he doesn't need them, we may decide to withdraw from this cooperation in terms of electricity supplies," he added.