Fuel supply: The federal government is putting the expansion of the oil pipeline for PCK to the test

The previous federal government had budgeted up to 400 million euros for the expansion of the pipeline and the port of Rostock, but the necessary approval from the EU for the payment of the state aid has not yet been received. This so-called aid procedure is currently suspended, as the federal government has now written. The PCK is informed about this. The left-wing politician Görke said that the pipeline expansion, which had been delayed for years, was now cancelled.

Pipeline capacity should be increased

Since the embargo on Russian oil, the line has been the central route for transporting millions of tons of crude oil to the PCK in Schwedt. According to the federal government, the transport capacity should be increased to 9 million tons of oil per year.

Ministry: Use of funds more broadly

Now it is said that in the course of the 2026 budget, the funds should not only be used to upgrade the pipeline, but also for further measures to secure the energy supply in northern Germany and for innovation projects. A corresponding funding application has been submitted to the European Commission for review. “The federal government and the European Commission were and are in agreement that the Russian company Rosneft should not benefit from any funding.”

In the afternoon, the Federal Ministry of Economics did not respond to a request about the reasons and a possible new use of funding.

Left-wing politician Görke: “Dying in installments”

The left-wing MP Görke said: “We are in a dead end. There will be no way around nationalization.” According to its own information, the federal government does not plan to do this. According to Görke, a “death in installments” is looming for the refineries, which supply large parts of northeast Germany and Berlin with, among other things, fuel, heating oil and kerosene.

The PCK oil refinery in Schwedt is owned 54 percent by German subsidiaries of the Russian state-owned company Rosneft. However, because of Russia’s war in Ukraine, they are under trust management and therefore under the control of the federal government. The previous traffic light government decided not to use Russian pipeline oil because of the war in Ukraine.

Since May, Russia has stopped the transit of Kazakh crude oil through the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline. That accounts for about a fifth of the refinery’s processed volume.

Replacement sought for loss of Kazakh oil

The search for replacements and alternative delivery quantities, for example via the port in the Polish port of Gdansk, continues. Most recently it was said that PCK was receiving a shipment of oil from South America from the Polish fuel dealer Unimot Paliwa. The refinery’s capacity utilization should be kept at around 80 percent.