Lviv/Kyiv – The shipment of oil to Europe via the Druzhba oil-trunk pipeline has been suspended due to blackouts caused by the bad weather in Lviv region, the press center of the Emergency Situations Ministry's main department in the region has told Interfax-Ukraine.
According to the source, the Brody oil pumping station suspended work at 0415 on Wednesday, as a result of which oil stopped being pumped in the Brody-Carpathians-state border section of the pipeline.
Moreover, after a power outage, the Karpaty (Carpathians) oil pumping station in the village of Koziova in Lviv region’s Skolivsky district, stopped operating.
Ukrainian Fuel and Energy Minister Yuriy Prodan has pledged that the transit of oil in the western direction is to be restored by the end of the current day.
“There is hope that by the end of today we’ll manage to restore the station’s work and fix the situation,” he told journalists.
He said the oil shipped through the oil-trunk pipelines is being pumped into oil tanks.
However, Prodan said that the repairs to the power supply grid are complicated by the fact that the damaged power transmission lines are located in a mountainous area.
According to him, 22 power substations remain out of service, 22 110-kV and six 35-kV transmission facilities remain inoperative as of the morning of Wednesday as a result of the storms in Ukraine’s west.
As national oil pipe line operator OJSC Ukrtransnafta said in a press release on Wednesday, the equipment of the oil pumping stations and the company’s portion of the Druzhba pipeline are functioning properly, and there is no threat to the environment.
Moreover, the company’s press service added that the emergency crews of OJSC Lvivoblenergo and OJSC Zakhidenergo are currently engaged in restoring power supplies to the cut off facilities.
As was reported earlier, 1,152 populated localities in 12 Ukrainian regions lost power in the second half of Tuesday and in the early hours on Wednesday because of bad weather.
