Orban: Hungary Works to Bypass U.S. Sanctions on Russian Oil

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that his government is looking for ways to circumvent new U.S. sanctions against Russian oil companies.

The Gaze reports on it, referring to Reuters.

After U.S. President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on Russian companies Lukoil and Rosneft, Hungary found itself among the EU countries that could suffer the most due to their dependence on Russian oil.

Orbán acknowledged that he is negotiating with Hungarian oil and gas company MOL on possible solutions that would allow the country to avoid the impact of the restrictions.

“We are working on how to circumvent this sanction,” he said.

However, he did not disclose any specific steps that would be taken in this direction.

The sanctions, expected to take effect in November, pose risks to MOL's oil refineries in Hungary and Slovakia, which process more than 14 million tons of oil annually, much of which is supplied by Russia's Druzhba pipeline.

Last year, MOL already faced supply problems after Ukraine imposed sanctions on Lukoil. At that time, the company was able to resume imports thanks to agreements on the transfer of ownership of oil at the border between Belarus and Ukraine.

Now Budapest is looking for similar alternative mechanisms in an attempt to maintain energy stability despite growing international pressure.

As The Gaze informed earlier, Hungarian and Slovak Prime Ministers have joined forces against calls from the EU and the U.S. to abandon Russian energy resources, stressing that their countries, as sovereign states, determine their own energy policy.