The Druzhba pipeline (SIBERIA.TRANSNEFT.RU)

Kazakh Energy Minister Bulat Aqchulaqov indicated on Wednesday that the volume of the first delivery of Kazakh oil to Germany via the Druzhba pipeline in January may amount to 20,000 tonnes, and the annual volume may reach 1.5 million tonnes.

"The first batch is 20,000 tonnes of oil, this is preliminary," Aqchulaqov told journalists on the sidelines of a governmental meeting, adding that the total amount of oil delivered in 2023 "could be up to 1.5 million tonnes."

"The maximum we could do is 6-7 million [tonnes] a year," the Kazakh Minister noted.

Aqchulaqov highlighted that Russia supported the transit of Kazakh oil through the Druzhba pipeline.

"We had been waiting for an official confirmation from our colleagues from Russia on the transfer through the territory of the Russian Federation, and we have a verbal confirmation," he indicated, affirming that Astana "has never had any major problems regarding pumping" with Moscow.

Igor Demin, the spokesperson of Russian oil giant Transneft, told Sputnik on December 29 that the company had received an application from Kazakh oil transporter KazTransOil for reserving additional capacities of the Druzhba pipeline in the amount of 1.2 million tonnes for oil transit to Germany in 2023, of which 300,000 tonnes would be reserved for the first quarter of the year.

Demin added that KazTransOil's application required the approval of the Russian Energy Ministry.

According to Bloomberg, Germany has been negotiating oil with Kazakhstan to replace Russian supplies, and the German Ministry of Economics has indicated that under the current sanctions, it is permissible to use the existing pipeline network for Kazakh crude oil.

It is noteworthy that in late December 2022, Wolfgang Kubicki, the Vice-President of the German Parliament, warned that Germany could soon become a dysfunctional, bankrupt state if it stays on the same path it is currently on and fails to deal with the ongoing energy crisis in light of its imbalanced financial policies.

"If we continue that way and want to provide energy assistance for years, then we could face state bankruptcy rather than state socialism," Kubicki told the German Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

According to the Parliament's deputy speaker, the extra money Germany is currently planning to spend on energy imports from elsewhere than Russia would be withdrawn from other areas, as the surplus can be "neither printed on a money printing machine nor covered by taxpayers."

German left-wing politician and chairman of the Bundestag committee on energy, Klaus Ernst, commented back in September on statements by Chancellor Olaf Scholz that the sanctions should not hit Europe harder than Russia itself.

"We have now imposed seven packages of sanctions and Gazprom is making record profits. At the same time, we are threatened with a wave of bankruptcies. Therefore: negotiate with Russia with an open mind," Ernst pointed out.