Today’s ‘Puls Biznesu’ daily speculates that the Polish government would press for eliminating intermediaries in crude oil purchases to Polish refineries, such as J&S. The newspaper is citing a new governmental document on oil sector strategy, calling for more transparency in crude oil purchases contracts.
Our view: We believe that this is more political message than a real intention to increase the transparency oil business. The crude supply chain from Russia functions through the bunch of intermediaries for a long time already and not to break so easily as it has beneficiaries from both sides: Russian trading companies and crude buyers (CEE refineries), which enjoy the pipeline discount.