Russia's Federal Ecological, Technological and Atomic Oversight Service (Rostekhnadzor) has ordered OAO Druzhba Trunk Pipeline to take urgent measures to rectify dangerous flaws and bring the Unecha-Polotsk-1 and 2 trunk pipelines into compliance with industrial safety standards within two weeks, the Rostekhnadzor press service said as reported by Interfax Moscow. The Russian regulator also ordered the owners of the Druzhba pipeline, Russian pipeline operator Transneft, to increase the safety of the oil pipelines during restoration works following an accident that led to the cut-off of oil supplies to Lithuanian refinery Mazeikiu Nafta and also to set a deadline for competing an inspection program and completing restoration work.
Our view: We doubt that the pipeline will be repaired in a two-week time since the previous events showed that there could be more than enough reasons to postpone the reparations. However since we did not count with the re-starting of the pipeline until 2008, we would see it as positive if it could be done earlier.