BUDAPEST (Reuters) -Hungary is working on finding a way to circumvent U.S. sanctions on Russian oil companies, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday, without giving details but giving no indication that he planned to defy the restrictions.
U.S. President Donald Trump, a close ally of the Hungarian leader, on Wednesday imposed sanctions on Russia for the first time in his second term, targeting Lukoil and Rosneft, as he tries to pressure Moscow into agreeing a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Trump’s move drove up oil prices and left questions for Hungary and Slovakia, the biggest buyers of Russian oil in the European Union after securing exemptions from EU restrictions.
Orban said that he has talked to Hungary’s oil and gas company MOL about the sanctions.
“We are working on how to circumvent this sanction,” he said in an interview with state radio Kossuth.
MOL’s refineries in Hungary and Slovakia, with a total capacity to process 14.2 million tonnes of crude oil a year, are reliant on Russian crude transported through the Druzhba pipeline.
MOL’s Slovak unit Slovnaft said on Thursday it was analysing the possible impact on its operations of U.S. sanctions, which should come into effect later in November.
Last year MOL ran into problems with deliveries when Ukraine sanctioned Lukoil. The company struck deals to take ownership of the affected crude oil volumes at the Belarus-Ukraine border to keep flows coming.
(Reporting by Anita Komuves; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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