Sergey Kondratiev, Principal Director on Economic Studies at the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper on Russian oil supplies to Bulgaria.
As Sergey Kondratiev notes, now the refinery processes oil from Kazakhstan (CPC, KEBCO) and the Middle East, in January-February purchasing batches of Arab Light, Iraqi Basrah Light, Tunisian Halk El Menzel.
According to Kondratiev, there are free volumes of oil suitable for processing at the Burgas plant on the market. The main issue here is the price, previously Bulgaria bought Urals at a discount of $ 14-15 per barrel to Brent. Prices for other grades are higher. This means that the margin of the plant will decrease, and prices for consumers in Bulgaria will increase, the expert clarifies.
From Kondratiev's point of view, among the possible candidates for the acquisition of the Burgas refinery are Azerbaijan's SOCAR and Kazakhstan's KazMunaiGas (the latter has assets in Romania, and this may become both an incentive and an obstacle to the deal - if the EC considers the concentration in the market too high).
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