Russia will no longer export oil through foreign Baltic ports

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Russia is going to stop exporting oil through foreign ports on the Baltic Sea by 2018. Reuters reports, that Nikolai Tokarev, head of the Russian pipeline company Transneft, discussed the plan with President Vladimir Putin during their meeting on Monday.

“Last year, around 9 million tons were shipped through the Baltic ports, while this year the figure was 5 million ton,” Tokarev told Putin, according to the meeting’s official transcript on the Kremlin’s website. "By 2018, we will reduce this flow to the Baltic ports to zero and will direct it to our ports instead, as we have surplus capacity.”

 “Good,” Putin replied.

Today Russian crude supplies are shipped via two Latvian cities – Riga and Ventspils. When the implementation of the plan starts, the supplies will be redirected to Russian ports on the Baltic Sea with excess capacity, the oil executive said.

In July, the European Commission announced its decision to invest 263 million euros in trans-European energy infrastructure projects which aims to help the expansion of the gas infrastructure in the Baltic region.