MAZEIKIU NAFTA REFINERY LEARNING TO LIVE WITHOUT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 VILNIUS 000801 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR EUR/NB, EUR/NCE, EB/ESC STATE PLEASE PASS TO FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION DOE FOR HARBERT DOC FOR 4231/IEP/EUR/BOHIGIAN NSC FOR GRAHAM, MCKIBBEN AND COEN TREASURY FOR LOWERY, LEE AND COX E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/24/2021 TAGS: ENRG ECON PREL XG VE SUBJECT: MAZEIKIU NAFTA REFINERY LEARNING TO LIVE WITHOUT RUSSIA'S PIPELINE REF: A. VILNIUS 727 AND PREVIOUS ¶B. MOSCOW 8340 ¶C. VILNIUS 774 Classified By: POL/ECON Section Chief Rebecca Dunham for reasons 1.4 (b ) and (d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Lithuania's Mazeikiu Nafta (MN) oil refinery is operating at full capacity, despite the recent cutoff of its most economic source of crude, via pipeline from Russia (refs A and B). MN is currently using its Baltic Sea terminal at Butinge to offload its entire crude supply from tankers loaded mainly at Russia's Primorsk facility, but expects to supplement this with supplies delivered via rail. Senior MN officials expect to operate at near-full capacity in September, even though repairs to the Butinge terminal will put that facility out of service for nearly two weeks. MN remains optimistic about its prospects and continues to search for new supplies of crude in case the supply from Primorsk becomes unavailable. Press reports suggest that some shipping companies are already coming under pressure to stop transporting Russian oil from Primorsk to Butinge. The GOL is also finding it hard to maintain a consistent public relations message that avoids blaming Russia for the pipeline problems. END SUMMARY. -------------- STILL RUNNING AT FULL-TILT -------------- ¶2. (C) MN's General Director Nelson English told us on August 17 that MN continues to operate at full capacity (approximately 840,000 tons of crude per month),even though its traditional supply of crude delivered by pipeline is no longer available because of the "accident" on the Druzhba pipeline (refs A and B). He said that eight vessels (at approximately 100,000 tons of crude each) will offload at Butinge in August and that he expects another six to offload in September. He added that in September MN will also start receiving some 20,000 tons of crude per month by rail from Ukraine and that MN was also exploring the possibility of receiving rail-delivered crude from Kaliningrad as well. He said that the outlook for October was also good and that MN would continue to look for non-Russian crude supplies (including from Venezuela) to hedge against the possibility of crude supplies from Primorsk becoming unavailable. -------------- -- REPAIRS WILL LOWER SEPTEMBER PROCESSING TARGETS -------------- -- ¶3. (C) The long-planned replacement of Butinge's damaged single-point mooring (SPM) buoy will prevent MN from offloading any crude for at least 12 days in early September. English emphasized, however, that MN still expects to process more than 700,000 tons of crude in September, only 20 percent below its capacity. He said that MN could easily obtain enough crude to operate at full capacity in September, but the combination of the SPM buoy replacement and MN's limited storage capacity will curb MN's production that month. -------------- CUTOFF MAY BE PERMANENT, BUT WHO CARES? -------------- ¶4. (U) Local press, citing various Russian media sources, reported August 16 that the pipeline that used to supply MN may never reopen. These reports suggest that Transneft will focus on increasing the capacity of its Baltic Pipeline System that supplies Primorsk rather than on making repairs to the aging pipeline that supplies MN. Local press also carried PKN Orlen Chair Igor Chalupec's August 11 comments that, despite the supply issues, he remains committed to the purchase of MN. (One local paper with a reputation for scandal-mongering also mentioned a Chalupec statement that PKN could legally withdraw from the deal before December 31, if the value of MN dropped sharply, but it is not clear when or under what circumstances Chalupec made this statement, if at all.) VILNIUS 00000801 002 OF 003 ¶5. (C) English told us that MN can and will continue to operate as if it expects the pipeline to remain closed for the indefinite future. He stressed that MN was still learning how to operate using only tanker-offloaded crude and that it was only going to get better and more efficient at it. He emphasized that he remains confident that MN will remain able to obtain the necessary crude supplies, saying "there is almost no way we can run dry or have to shut down." -------------- AN UNFORTUNATE PR INCIDENT -------------- ¶6. (C) As we reported in ref C, much of the Lithuanian national security establishment, including Foreign Ministry Under Secretary Albinas Januska, continue to tell us that they are abiding by the advice from USG energy consultant Steve Hellman to refrain from commenting publicly on the pipeline issue. Less than 24 hours after Januska talked with the Ambassador about this, however, he reportedly told Russian Embassy's Charge Dmitry Tsvetkov that if the "repairs" to the damaged pipeline were not carried out expeditiously, the Lithuanians may begin repairs on the rail link that connects Kaliningrad with Belarus (and by extension, Russia proper). These repairs, Januska reportedly told Tsvetkov, would necessarily reduce the amount of "special cargo," especially military cargo, that transit this stretch of railway. (An MFA source we contacted after the story hit the wires would not confirm the story, but he pointedly did not deny it, either. A different GOL source told us that Januska later told the PM that his comments were directed not at the pipeline situation, but towards gaining leverage on negotiations with the Russians over rail tariffs.) ¶7. (C) The President's office and the Prime Minister quickly issued public statements distancing the GOL from Januska's thinly veiled threats and emphasized that the national railway company alone is responsible for deciding if and when any repairs to the country's rail network are necessary. Prime Minister's advisor Saulius Specius told us August 24 that the PM wants to avoid politicizing the pipeline issue and wants instead to focus on painting the situation as an opportunity for MN to become an independent operation, no longer dependent on one source of supply. Similarly, presidential advisor Nerijus Udrenas told us August 24 that President Adamkus also sees no advantage in publicly blaming Russia for the "accident." ¶8. (C) Both Specius and Udrenas emphasized, however, that it will become increasingly difficult for the GOL to avoid appearing embarrassingly naive if the press continues to highlight the "accident." Both recognized that it may well be in Russia's long-term interest to focus its resources on developing its export routes through Primorsk and to China at the expense of MN, but noted that this explanation is unlikely to satisfy everybody here -- especially those that want to highlight Russian malfeasance towards Lithuania. -------------- THE START OF THE PRIMORSK CUTOFF? -------------- ¶9. (C) Local press reported August 18 that some shipping companies currently transporting crude from Primorsk to Butinge have noticed the first signs of Russian pressure against this activity. The article alleges that these shipping companies have received unspecified "signals" from Specnefteport (the company that runs the Primorsk port) that if they want to continuing loading in Primorsk they will need to avoid offloading at Butinge. State Department Advisor Steve Hellman told us August 18 that some oil companies are coming under pressure to include clauses in their contracts with shipping companies that specifically exclude Butinge as a destination for crude from Primorsk. Both Specius and English have told us that they expect the Russians to cut MN off from Primorsk at some point and that MN is actively planning to manage this possibility. VILNIUS 00000801 003 OF 003 -------------- ANOTHER REGULATORY HURDLE -------------- ¶10. (C) Specius told us August 22 that lawyers hired by PKN Orlen and MN have advised that PKN's purchase of MN will need approval not only from the European Commission's DG-Competition (a process that has already begun),but also from competition authorities in the United States and Ukraine. Specius said that the lawyers advised that the processes in these countries -- both significant markets for MN's production -- would be unlikely to derail the deal. Specius added that the lawyers planned to submit the necessary paperwork to the U.S. authorities sometime between August 28 and September 1. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶11. (C) Januska's reported comments are not particularly helpful, but they are understandable -- Lithuania's leaders do not want the public to view them as naive or helpless in the face of what many Lithuanians view as yet another Russian attempt to use energy as a political tool. Once Lithuania's political class returns from vacation at the end of August, the GOL will come under increasing pressure to "do something," and Januska may have made these comments to blunt some of this pressure. ¶12. (C) The GOL, however, may be able to turn this situation to its -- and Lithuania's -- ultimate advantage. If MN successfully secures non-Russian supplies of crude and MN continues to remain fully supplied, operational, and profitable without the pipeline or Primorsk, the GOL will be able to argue that Lithuania has become less dependent on Russian energy. CLOUD