Czechs dealing with Russian oil cutback

With Russia cutting oil deliveries to the Czech Republic, a strategic decision made by Prague in the early 1990s to reduce its energy dependence on Moscow appears to be paying off.

The Czech Republic was the only former communist country in the region to diversify energy sources immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union, and it seemed unfazed this week by the Russian decision to cut oil deliveries by about 40 percent.
“We are managing quite well,” said Tomas Bartovsky, spokesman for the Trade and Industry Ministry. “We have alternative sources of supplies.”

Russia, without warning, stopped sending up to 7,000 tons of oil a day via the Druzba, or Friendship, pipeline last week. That pipeline is controlled by the Russian state-owned company, Transneft. Russia sends annually about 5.5 million tons of oil via the Druzba pipeline to the Czech Republic.

The reductions started July 8, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Czech counterpart, Karl Schwarzenberg, signed an accord to allow the Pentagon to base part of its anti-ballistic missile shield in the Czech Republic.

International Herald Tribune