Romanian authorities suspect that Russia may have deliberately contaminated a large quantity of Azerbaijani oil during a hybrid operation, which was supplied to Romania for the OMV Petrom refinery in Petrobrazi, reported G4Media official sources. The oil was supplied via the pipeline route Azerbaijan — Georgia — Turkey, from where it was delivered to Romania by tankers. The concentration of chlorine in the contaminated oil was high enough to cause serious damage to the refinery due to corrosion, which would lead to a fuel shortage in Romania.
According to the publication's sources, the oil contamination could have occurred as a result of a relatively simple Russian sabotage operation along the 1700-kilometer pipeline route. This would have required several tanks with chlorine injected into the pipeline.
The first reports of contamination with organic chloride of crude oil from Azerbaijan appeared on July 22. Italian ENI announced that it had discovered contaminated oil at one of its refineries. The oil also reached the plants of the Czech company Orlen Unipetrol, after which all operations were suspended.
On Monday, the Romanian Ministry of Energy declared an emergency situation in the supply of crude oil and allowed OMV to obtain 80,000 tons of oil and 30,000 tons of diesel fuel from reserve stocks.
This year, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline transported an average of about 575,000 barrels per day.
In the past, supplies contaminated with too high a content of organic chlorides have had a significant impact on the oil market, Bloomberg reported.