The interim crude oil deliveries through the Pipeline Druzhba to the East German Schwedt was a Disaster for the Russian Oil industry. A report from Schwedt on the Oder, the end point of the Druzhba Pipeline.
From the “channel”, as the Locals call the Hohensaater-Friedrich Thaler-water street for the sake of simplicity, you can do it with the rowing boat everywhere. “We are here at km 121,5,” says Rainer Göllnitz. “The Zero is in Spandau at the lock. About the boat lift to get to Berlin.” Göllnitz, a sporty guy with glasses, throwing a glance across the channel to the nature reserve and the wild overgrown polder meadows. From there, it’s not even five kilometers to Poland.
Gelnica is a passionate rower. In his spare time, he is not training young people in water sports PCK Schwedt e. V. If he is with the boat on the way, he works as a process engineer in the PCK refinery in the city of Schwedt. For 20 years, born in Schwedt is at the oil processing plant operates in Parts of the European Mineralölfimen and the Russian Rosneft group.
Views of the plant site, the Refinery PCK Schwedt (Brandenburg)
At the end of April is happening in one of Göllnitz‘ worlds, something Unexpected. “Yes, we had contaminated Oil”, to the process engineer. He remains the delicate matter of the taciturn. Contaminated Oil passes through the Pipeline Druzhba (the Russian word for friendship) to the West: a Total of approximately five million tons of crude oil to be worth 2.6 billion dollars (2.2 billion euros) contaminated have been. According to experts, it has been comparable to the scale of never, not even during the collapse of the Soviet Union. The acute crisis lasted for a good seven weeks, temporarily to a delivery stop.
Unsolved Problems
The Druzhba Pipeline is 5,500 kilometers one of the longest in the world. Germany obtains 36 per cent of its crude oil from Russia. A big part of it is transported via Druzhba. These branches in Belarus. The Northern strand supplies to Poland and Germany. The southern fork leads to Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
Since the outbreak of the crisis some ten weeks have passed. Because now the Oil is flowing, it has become in Germany the subject is still quieter than during the fall in the Supply itself. However, the Problem is far from solved. Alexander von Gersdorff, a spokesman for the German mineral oil industry Association, fears it could be August until the Pipeline is working again “with full capacity”.
It is also unclear how the negotiations between the Russian state-owned Pipeline monopolist Transneft, the Druzhba Pipeline is operated, and its German partners work and how high the compensation might be. No one has yet asked the question of whether, because of the Druzhba debacle, the rules of the game for the oil Supplies from Russia should be changed.
Misleading Silence
What happened: On 19. April 2019 complained to the state-owned Belarusian Oil company Belneftekhim on a “sudden deterioration” of the Russian stock oil. 23. April, the Polish operator PERN S. A. blocked its section of the Pipeline.
The PCK refinery in Schwedt, in the majority of Rosneft in the possession of the Russian state-group-in-law, in spite of the gravity of the situation persistently. The refinery’s work schedule with low capacity, it was said succinctly. On the website of the plant: Not a word to the contaminated Oil.
On the written request of the DW to PCK-managing Director Wulf Spitzley, Roswitha responds Flöter of the corporate communication on 18. June only succinctly. The crude oil supply is restarted, the Refinery had been operated in the period as a whole, “safe and without damage”. Questions for possible losses have not been answered at all.
The Pipeline from the GDR
The Druzhba Pipeline has a special history. It was created on the Initiative of the GDR in the late 1950s as a joint project of the socialist States. Location of the plant in Schwedt was in the Or. Construction began in 1960, the first Oil flowed in 1962.
“The refinery was brought to Schwedt, because there are a lot of water,” recalls Dieter Pohlann, former operations Manager at petroleum composite cable GmbH in Schwedt, Germany, and today is the President of the shooting Guild PCK Schwedt 1812 e. V. Schwedt had at the time a further site advantage: It was directly on the border with the people’s Republic of Poland.
Still today, the factory outside of the city centre is located – there, where there used to be a mark of the count’s pine forest, and numerous pink-flowering tobacco fields. Born in 1967, Rainer Göllnitz still remembers the tobacco barns, which he has as a child, seen.
Canoes on the Radne of the “channel”
A Major Employer
Today, the refinery in Schwedt has around 1200 employees. In addition, it gives on the site of numerous subcontractors and service providers, with approximately 2000 employees. For the district of Uckermark, in Brandenburg, and, ultimately, for Germany, the oil processing plant in Schwedt is extremely important. PCK is the largest employer of around 31,000 inhabitants of the town. There are families who have been working for generations in the case of PCK. The city itself has not much to offer. In the center there are two, three small cafes, an Inn, a few shops. To a show-window you can see a hand-written note. It says in Polish: “Sklep dla thanks” (“business for all”).
“Not our issue“
Vica Fajnor, head of PCK-press office, fends off approximately eight weeks after the start of the crisis, all the questions related to the Druzhba-debacle. “We process crude oil that belongs to our shareholders,” she explains of the DW-reporter in her office on the PCK-site. “Therefore it is not really our theme.” The Schwedter mayor, Jürgen Polzehl sees “no need” to talk to the DW about the role of PCK for the development of the city, reports its press office.
“I know that there was a delivery stop, and that the contamination probably is also damage in the refinery attached,” says the 76-year-old Joachim Kolenda. He was for several years in the case of PCK in the area of investments and could now directs the senior citizens Association of the PCK e. V. How high is the damage, he can not quantify, however.
Specific Dieter Pohlann, which is found on the grounds of the Schwedter Guild to protect is expressed. “The PCK plant for crude oil 1 must have been out of operation, the crude oil 3 has worked. Then the bad Oil came, and you had to decide what to do next,” he says. So as he was aware of it, gave it to the holes “small amounts” of contaminated Oil, you could “treat easier”. “At least the collection was then cleaned make.”
The danger is caused by hydrocyanic acid
Organic chlorine compounds, which have contaminated the Oil, are only in certain fractions and under certain temperatures, dangerous, explains Pohlann. The oil transport play not a big role, because you could make the pipes and the pump with the cleaning agents to clean. “But if it comes then in the distillery, it is warmed, and then acid, which is highly aggressive arises blue”. You could cause strong corrosion, says Pohlann.
In this way, great damage at the refinery in Belarus Mazyr seem to have been formed. In Schwedt, Germany you have been warned, but of the Polish operators in a timely manner. The worst could be prevented.
In the acute Phase of the crisis Rainer Göllnitz was busy in his laboratory-intensive. “There was much more work than usual.” Inspections, Tests, Analyses. “This analysis takes an average of half a day.” If you knew what was in the Oil in there, you had to mix it down.
Supplies from Rostock
As the PCK was faced with the interruption to the supply from Russia, the plant was forced to purchase crude oil on the overseas port of Rostock. Detailed information as to the amounts of don’t want to make PCK spokesperson Fajnor. Also, Burkhard Woelki, head of communications at Rosneft, Germany, announced in a telephone conversation, no concrete Numbers, because this “could have a competitive impact.”
According to the opinion of Joachim Kolenda, a former PCK employees, creates the Rostock Pipeline “to a maximum of 60 percent” of transit. With this utilization of PCK could work just economically, he says. According to his assessment, to be delivered, the date of the Druzhba-stops “around 20,000 tons a day could be pumped” from Rostock.
Most of the technical problems has been solved in the meantime. For the left, you will find in the foreseeable future a solution. But in the case of the Druzhba crisis is less about technical solutions, but the corroded Image of the Russian Oil suppliers, and the lack of transparency, the German refineries and their shareholders have shown. Over the long-term consequences of the Pipeline crisis, however, want to talk today no one.
“Sechin is probably a helicopter flew in”
Since January of 2017, the PCK in Schwedt, the majority (54,17 per cent) belongs to Rosneft, the Russian oil group. At the beginning of 2018 received the refinery of the Rosneft chief Executive, Igor Sechin. “He is not here, it is probably a helicopter flew in,” and “has looked at everything,” said Dieter Pohlann.
According to PCK spokesperson Vica Fajnor, the Rosneft CEO, has announced that at the Schwedt location of 600 million euros to invest. To put it in Relation: Since 1990, a total of around 2.7 billion euros have been invested in the refinery.
Also, the local politicians see Russia as a reliable Partner. For the Faction leader of the SPD in the Parliament of Brandenburg, Mike Bischoff, has lost the Druzhba neither economically nor politically important, “because it is a Pipeline that our countries are United”.