Slovakia ending diesel fuel export ban, other measures still in place
Slovakia will end a temporary ban on exports of diesel fuel from Friday but keep in place other fuel measures due to the conflict in the Middle East, Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Wednesday.
Slovakia has taken measures to cope with surging global oil prices since U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran started at the end of February. The United States and Iran agreed a ceasefire late on Tuesday.
On March 19, Slovakia's government approved - alongside the ban on diesel exports - a resolution allowing service stations to limit diesel sales, and also set higher prices for cars with foreign plates as it sought to clamp down on "fuel tourism".
Those temporary measures will stay in place.
The Iran crisis has coincided with a break in Russian oil supplies coming to Slovakia via Ukraine.
The country's sole refiner Slovnaft, owned by Hungarian oil and gas group MOL, got a loan of up to 250,000 tonnes of crude from state reserves in February when the state declared an oil emergency situation.
Fico said on Wednesday Slovnaft had already fully returned that loaned oil.
The loan bridged Slovnaft's need to find alternative supplies after the halt in Druzhba flows in Ukraine caused by what Kyiv said was a Russian strike that damaged the line.
Slovakia and Hungary have accused Ukraine of holding up flows for political reasons, which Kyiv denies.
Comments