From 2025, the Czech Republic will begin to receive oil from 20 countries and will get rid of dependence on Russia, which still remains its main supplier, writes the Czech publication Novinky.
This should happen thanks to the expansion of the Trans-Alpine pipeline (TAL), announced in 2023.
The TAL pipeline starts in Trieste (Italy), where the seaport is located, and leads to Austria and Germany. The Czech Republic is connected to it via the IKL (Ingolstadt – Kralupy – Litvinov) pipeline, which begins in the south of Germany.
“Increasing supplies (via the TAL oil pipeline) will completely cover all domestic consumption. We will no longer need Russian oil,” said Jaroslav Pantuček, CEO of the Czech pipeline operator Mero, in a commentary to Hospodářské noviny.
“After the new capacities of the TAL oil pipeline are put into operation in 2025, I expect that most of the supplies will be provided by the countries already supplying oil to this oil pipeline. These are mainly Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the USA, Iraq. But in total there are about twenty of these countries. I I don’t think that Russia’s dominance will be replaced by another dominant player. There will be more countries with a lower share, and this will depend on the market situation,” said Jiri Tileček, an analyst at the international investment company XTB.
The Czech Republic is one of three EU countries that still imports Russian oil (the other two are Hungary and Slovakia). They import through the southern branch of the Druzhba pipeline, which is not yet subject to the European embargo.
In 2023, the share of Russian oil in Czech imports amounted to 58% (4.3 million tons out of total imports of 7.4 million tons). The second largest supplier was Azerbaijan (26.5%), the third was Kazakhstan (approximately 10%).
