Economy Minister Ivan Vrdoljak said on Wednesday that no decision had been made to export oil from Croatia to neighbouring countries for refining.
"As far as I know, no decision has been made, but it is absolutely unacceptable for someone to think that they will export crude oil from Croatia, while at the same time they are shutting down the refinery at Sisak," Vrdoljak told the press before a Cabinet session.
Jutarnji List daily, citing an internal document of the INA oil company, said on Wednesday that production at the Sisak refinery had not been halted just temporarily but that INA was planning to transport domestic oil to refineries in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Hungary.
"All this is stupid from economic, environmental, industrial and transport aspects. INA should not make stupid decisions any more and I think our colleagues from MOL have realised that. They have backtracked on the closure of the Sisak refinery and profit payment. They have the money because they didn't pay out the profit and should now invest it in Rijeka and Sisak and use domestic oil in their production. We have the instruments to stop any decisions that are harmful to INA and the energy stability of Croatia," Vrdoljak said.
The Hungarian oil and gas group MOL holds a 49% stake in INA, while the Croatian government owns 44% of shares.
Vrdoljak was also asked to comment on the news that US officials had offered Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic two possibilities for supplying natural gas to his country in order to reduce Serbia's dependence on Russia for energy. One of them is that Serbia would receive gas from the United States via Croatia and Hungary, namely via an LNG terminal on the northern Croatian Adriatic island of Krk.
"Two years ago we started lobbying to show the importance of the LNG project for the energy stability of this part of Europe. This is now the top subject not just for the State Department, who give us their full support, but also for Brussels, who also give us full support for it," Vrdoljak said, adding that the LNG terminal was not the only priority project but that there were also all the gas pipelines.
Asked whether Serbia would be included in the project, Vrdoljak said: "We will include it. We are an important factor and will include both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia in these projects."
(http://dalje.com)
