Ukraine is looking at Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s exit as an opening to expand its energy footprint in Europe and displace Russian crude oil in Eastern Europe, executives with Ukraine’s state-owned energy company told POLITICO Thursday.
Orbán’s defeat in this week’s Hungarian election could set the stage for major changes in the European Union’s official relationship with Ukraine, now in its fifth year of active war against Russia. Orbán, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, had made sure that Russian oil flowed into Hungary and its neighboring states.
With Orbán gone and his successor, Péter Magyar, signaling a willingness to improve ties with Ukraine, Naftogaz and its oil-focused subsidiary is eying plans to ship about 100 million barrels of oil a year from a port in the Black Sea to Hungary and other countries in Eastern Europe — which could supplant the Russian deliveries.
“We are proposing an alternative route” to bypass Russian oil going into Europe, Naftogaz Chief International Officer Oleksii Riabchyn said in an interview.
