OMV and Transpetrol definitively halt Schwechat-Bratislava oil pipeline project

Austrian oil company OMV and Slovakia’s Transpetrol have definitively halted the long-running project to build an oil pipeline between Schwechat and Bratislava. OMV had planned to build the pipeline as early as 2003 to secure long-term oil supplies to Austria, but the project has now been scrapped because of the energy transition and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The APA news agency reported this today, citing the Lower Austrian business news service.

The original plan envisaged a 62-kilometre pipeline connecting Austria directly to the Druzhba pipeline. OMV operates a refinery in Schwechat, one of the largest in Europe. The refinery is now supplied via the Adria pipeline, which runs from the Adriatic coast in Croatia, and the TAL pipeline from Trieste, Italy.

Since Austria has not imported any oil from Russia since February 2023, the new pipeline has become unnecessary, the Austrian Ministry for Climate Protection said. OMV had also decided in March 2022 that it would no longer proceed with the project.

The project had previously been delayed by uncertainty over Transpetrol’s ownership structure. The former Russian energy group Yukos held a 49 percent stake in Transpetrol for a long time, and Slovakia was only able to take over the shares in 2009. The pipeline route was also controversial in Slovakia because it would cross one of the country’s largest drinking water reservoirs.