By Gleb Bryanski
MOSCOW, April 21 (Reuters) - Russia is set to stop oil exports from Kazakhstan to Germany via the Druzhba pipeline starting from May 1, three industry sources said on Tuesday.
The sources, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said that an adjusted oil exporting schedule has been sent to Kazakhstan and Germany.
A halt to Kazakh flows would add more uncertainty to Germany’s fuel supply as the Iran war disrupts energy shipments from the Middle East only a few years after Berlin’s decades-long energy ties with Russia were upended by the war in Ukraine.
Kazakhstan’s oil exports to Germany via Russia’s Druzhba pipeline totalled 2.146 million metric tons, or around 43,000 barrels per day, in 2025, an increase of 44% from 2024, and 730,000 tons in the first quarter of 2026.
A complete halt would remove about 17% of the up to 12 million metric tons of oil a year processed by Germany’s PCK refinery - one of the country’s largest - in the northeastern town of Schwedt, fuel from which powers 9 out of 10 cars in the Berlin and Brandenburg region.
Russia’s energy ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he was not aware of a move to stop the oil exports.
“We will try to check it,” Peskov told reporters on a daily conference call.
Kazakhstan’s energy ministry and the German government did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
ENERGY TIES UPENDED
Russia’s political and business relations with Germany have been frayed by the conflict in Ukraine. Deliveries of Russian oil were halted after the start of the war and Berlin placed the local units of Russia’s largest oil producer Rosneft under trusteeship in 2022.
Kazakhstan has supplied oil to PCK via the northern spur of Druzhba, which traverses Poland, since 2023 but supplies have been repeatedly interrupted by Ukrainian drone attacks on the Russian section of the pipeline.
A spokesman for Poland’s pipeline operator PERN told Reuters the company is ready to ship oil for non-Russian shareholders of PCK via the port of Gdansk if asked to. Schwedt refinery holders include Rosneft, Shell and Eni.
(Reporting by Gleb Bryanski; Additional reporting by Dmitry Antonov in Moscow and Marek Strzelecki in Warsaw;Writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Jason Neely and Kirsten Donovan)
