Ukraine clash threatens oil to Europe

Corruption and politics in Ukraine threaten to choke off, at least in the near term, the expansion of oil exports from Azerbaijan and eventually Kazakhstan to Europe. This is the significance of Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko’s efforts in July to halt what she called the “shadowy privatization” of the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline.
The pipeline, from Ukraine’s Black Sea coast to near the country’s border with Poland, was built originally to transport Caspian oil to refineries in both countries, so as to decrease dependence on energy supplies from Russia. However, a route to get the requisite Caspian oil to Odessa was never found, and the pipeline lay empty until 2004, when it was used to carry fuel in the reverse

direction, from Brody to Odessa, carrying Russian oil domestically inside Ukraine from Lukoil, BP-TNK, and other Russian companies. At Odessa it is loaded into
tankers and exported to the world market, exiting the Black Sea
through the Turkish Straits.

Asia Times