JANAF and Serbia sign agreement for 2-year oil transportation through Montenegro and Croatian pipeline

Croatia's sole pipeline operator, JANAF, has signed a two-year contract with Serbia's NIS, controlled mainly by Russia's Gazprom, to transport crude oil to Serbia, despite the previously announced cessation of such transportation due to tougher EU restrictions on Russian oil imports.

In an agreement valid for 2023 and 2024, NIS has reserved JANAF's capacity for 6.2 million tons of crude oil, JANAF said Wednesday.

"JANAF has once again proven its role as a guarantor of energy security in our region. It also confirms that JANAF can provide secure supply to all users under any market conditions," the' 'statement.

Serbia, an EU candidate and one of the few European countries that has not joined the EU's Russian sanctions, imports all of its oil from Russia, with about half transported through JANAF. Until recently, Serbia feared JANAF would stop transporting oil to eastern neighbor Croatia due to the eighth package of EU sanctions imposed on Russian crude imports.

JANAF did announce earlier this year that it would stop transporting oil to Serbia, which Belgrade criticized in October as "political retaliation" and a "hostile gesture".

JANAF also supplies some oil to Hungary, which has recently urged Croatia and the EU to establish more favorable' 'transit tariffs for the transportation of oil delivered to the Adriatic by tanker and then transported through JANAF.

Croatian Economy Minister Davor Filipovic said this week that "JANAF's current throughput capacity to Hungary is 11.4 million tons of oil, while' 'while the production capacity of the refinery in Hungary is 8.1 million tons'. JANAF's designed annual throughput capacity is 34 million tons of crude oil and its installed capacity is 20 million tons.

Hungary, for its part, accused Croatia of "extremely dishonest behavior" and called it an "abuse of the military situation." (Zoran Radosavljevic | EURACTIV.com)

For more on EURACTIV.