Germany and Poland suspend imports via Russian pipeline

Viktor Drachev | TASS via Getty Images

Reconstruction works underway on the Mozyr – Brest section of the Druzhba pipeline [Friendship Pipeline], the world’s longest oil pipeline running from European Russia to the eastern and western Europe.

Germany and Poland have suspended imports of Russian oil amid contamination concerns, prompting a rare crisis over supply from the world’s second-largest exporter.

The sudden suspension of imports from the Soviet-built Druzhba pipeline, which runs from Russia via Belarus to central Europe, risks starving major European refineries of their major source of crude.

German plants belonging to Total, Shell, Eni and Rosneft as well as refineries belonging to Poland’s PKN Orlen and Grupa Lotos were all reportedly at risk.

The Druzhba pipeline can ship up to 1 million barrels per day (bpd), according to data sourced by Reuters — approximately 1% of global demand.

“The first thing to note is that this incident involving contaminated Russian oil is rare occurrence,” Stephen Brennock, oil analyst at PVM Oil Associates, told CNBC via email on Thursday.

In fact, Brennock said it is the “first time I have seen anything like it.”

High-level Russian government officials were set to meet on Thursday to discuss how to resolve the contaminated crude.

Analysts said these talks were likely to address how to avoid legal procedures against state-owned oil export company Transneft.

“Russia has made it clear that it would seek to address the quality concerns related to chlorine levels over the coming days, probably by the end of this week. Given the crucial role of oil in its economy, Russia takes this issue very seriously,” Agathe Demarais, global forecasting director at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) told CNBC via email on Thursday.