We are already in the second month of the Gulf War, and the parties remain unable to reach a common ground, even on the resolution of the conflict. Combined with the already devastated oil and gas market and destroyed infrastructure, this has shown that the market needs serious time to stabilize. There is one more point we should emphasize here. The US renewed the Russian oil waiver after pressure from countries dealing with the Iran war price shocks. The Treasury Department's waiver lets countries purchase Russian oil and petroleum products loaded on vessels as of Friday through May 16. It replaces a 30-day waiver that expired on April 11 and excludes transactions involving Iran, Cuba, and North Korea.

Just when that happened, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak confirmed that from May 1st, Moscow would cease transit of Kazakhstani crude through the Druzhba pipeline's northern leg to Germany, citing "technical capacities" in two words that explained nothing and implied everything. The PCK Schwedt refinery in northeastern Germany, which supplies roughly 90% of fuel to vehicles in the Berlin-Brandenburg region and feeds jet fuel to the capital's airports, will lose approximately 17% of its annual crude throughput. Brent crude ticked upward on the news. Germany's economy ministry said, with the careful phrasing of a government that knows the situation is serious, that supply was "not ultimately jeopardised."

In addition, Kazakhstan's Energy Minister Yerlan Akkenzhenov (Erlan Aqkenjenov) confirmed that Russia will stop transporting oil to Germany via the Druzhba pipeline in May. Notably, this occurred before Novak's statement. According to Akkenzhenov, Kazakhstan does not plan to reduce oil production, but volumes will be redistributed across export routes:

"For May, we have zero transit via the Druzhba pipeline via Atyrau-Samara and from there to the oil refinery in Schwedt."

Kaztransoil, Kazakhstan's national operator, provides oil transit through Russia via the Transneft pipeline system. This transit is carried out under the relevant intergovernmental agreement between Kazakhstan and Russia, dated June 7, 2002. Kazakhstan has been exporting oil to Germany via the Druzhba pipeline since 2023.

The Schwedt refinery operates at a capacity of around 12 million tonnes of oil annually. In 2025, Kazakhstan was supplying 2.146 million tonnes through Druzhba, an impressive 44% rise over the previous year, since Astana was consciously constructing that particular channel as an alternate source of non-Russian crude under the control of Russia following Berlin's decision to place Rosneft Germany into trusteeship in 2022. The Schwedt refinery is currently........

© AzerNews