This week, Kazakhstan shipped the first batch of crude to Germany through the Druzhba pipeline system as the German government looks to shore up supplies for a key refinery in Eastern Germany that until the turn of the year was fed almost exclusively by Russian oil.
The shipment of 20,000 tons, or about 145,000 barrels, is part of Germany’s broader plan to cut its dependency on Russian oil. Europe’s largest economy stopped buying oil from Russia this year even as pipeline crude oil remains exempt from a European Union embargo on Russian oil prompted by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
