(Adds details, background)
By Vladimir Soldatkin
MOSCOW, July 15 (Reuters) - Oil company Tatneft <TATN3.MM>,
one of two key suppliers of Russian crude to the Czech Republic,
said on Tuesday it had reduced the deliveries because it had
re-routed volumes to Turkey, where it could get better prices.
Russian state officials have said last week's cut in oil
flows to the Czech Republic via the Druzhba pipeline were of a
technical nature, denying that it was linked to Prague's role in
a U.S. missile defence shield.
Russian state pipeline monopoly Transneft <TRNF_p.RTS>
coordinates the supplies, of which one third belong to Tatneft
and two thirds to another mid-sized producer, Bashneft, which
has so far declined to comment.
"We were simply lacking volumes to meet our supply plan for
(Turkish refiner) Tupras," Nurislam Subayev, advisor to
Tatneft's deputy general director, told Reuters.
Tupras is Turkey's biggest refiner and a large importer of
crude from Tatneft.
"They (Tupras) are our long-time partners and the margins
are better there," he said. He declined to specify the scale of
the cut and said Tatneft would soon return to normal supply
volumes to the Czech Republic via the Druzhba pipeline.
The reduction in crude flows from Russia, the Czech
Republic's main supplier, followed Prague's decision to host a
radar station as part of a U.S. missile shield fiercely opposed
by Moscow.
OFFICIAL EXPLANATIONS
Some analysts have said the cut could have been a
retaliation by Moscow and pointed to confusing official
explanations.
Transneft has said both Tatneft and Bashneft reduced
supplies to the Czech Republic only because the two Russian
firms had decided to refine more crude at home.
Prague has said the Russian foreign ministry's explanations
focused on problems with domestic oil extraction, which the
Czech Foreign ministry said it found hard to believe, given that
its neighbours had avoided cuts in their supplies.
Russia's foreign ministry said only that the cuts were of a
commercial rather than political nature.
Russia strongly opposes the missile shield plan involving
its Soviet-era satellite countries, saying it poses a direct
threat to its own security.
Moscow has said it would point missiles at the Czech
Republic and Poland -- another possible site for shield
components -- if the deployment goes ahead.
Moscow has in the past cut gas supplies to Ukraine in a
pricing dispute and subsequently reduced deliveries of gas to
the European Union, prompting the United States to call on
Russia to stop using energy as a tool of blackmail.
By contrast, a Russian oil supply reduction to Germany last
year was recognised by both countries as a commercial dispute
between a major oil firm and a monopoly crude importer.
If the reduction in supply were to be maintained until the
end of the month, crude oil deliveries in July to the Czech
Republic would be about 200,000 tonnes below the planned 500,000
tonnes.
The main Czech refiner, Unipetrol <>, said at the
weekend it had begun tapping state oil reserves and raising
deliveries through the IKL pipeline, which hooks up to a west
European pipeline system in Germany.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin, writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov,
editing by Anthony Barker)
