Chevron Texaco wants Kazakh oil to flow through Slovakia

Chevron Texaco is offering Slovakia an option for the diversification of its oil stocks. It plans to use the Druzba pipeline to transport about 3 million tons of Kazakhstan oil. Most of it should be delivered to the refinery in Czech Kralupy. Pipeline administrator, the company Transpetrol, rejects the proposal and argues that adjusting the pipeline designed for heavy Russian oil to allow the transmission of light oil would cost over SKK 2 billion (Eur 50.04 million). Transpetrol is managed by Russian concern Yukos. Russian oil companies view Caspian oil as competition and the reaction of Transpetrol only follows in line with this attitude. It may sound paradoxical, but letting Caspian oil flow through the Transpetrol pipelines would help Russian concerns expand to Western European markets. The refinery in Kralupy is connected to the IKL pipeline, which connects the Czech Republic to the German network close to the German refinery in Ingolstadt. The one-way pipeline that the Czech used to decrease their dependency on Russian oil and the Druzba pipeline in the nineties would remain unused and discussions about an investment in a change of flow direction to allow the transport of oil to Germany would take on an entirely new dimension. The interest of Chevron may therefore indicate major changes in the European oil distribution network. If the flow direction of the IKL pipeline were to change, it would not only be possible to transport Caspian oil, but also Russian oil. What's more, both US and Western European companies have their sights set on Czech and German refineries that get their oil form the Caspian region and they are also interested in capital entry to Russian oil concerns. This scenario is likely to come true in the case of Yukos