Russia-Eastern Europe pipeline back at standard capacity - operator

The volume of crude oil being sent from Russia to Eastern Europe and Germany through the Druzhba pipeline has been brought back to scheduled levels, Polish pipeline operator PERN has said.

Quoting its Russian counterpart Transneft, PERN said on Wednesday that, due to ad-hoc maintenance work in Belarus, the pipeline's capacity would be reduced until Thursday morning, affecting Poland and Germany.

PERN is a state-owned company that manages a network of crude oil and petroleum products pipelines.

"The pumping is now in line with the schedule and the demand from Polish refineries," PERN spokeswoman Katarzyna Krasinska told PAP on Thursday.

The Druzhba pipeline is the longest oil pipeline in the world, carrying oil from the eastern part of European Russia to Belarusian refineries, and then onto Poland, other Eastern European countries and to Germany. It supplies oil to Poland's biggest refinery in Płock, owned by the country's oil and gas conglomerate PKN Orlen, as well as a few other refineries in Poland and Germany.