Poland, Hungary, Czechs to release 8mn barrels of crude from stocks

LONDON: Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic are making available to their domestic refiners around 8 million barrels of crude from strategic stocks to tackle the Russian Druzhba pipeline shutdown, industry sources said on Friday.

Oil in the one-million-barrel-per-day Druzhba pipeline running from Russia to eastern Europe via Belarus was contaminated by chemical compounds which can damage refining equipment.

The problems have also affected Germany and Slovakia but those two countries have yet to decide whether to release stocks.