MADRID Jan 15 () –
The Government of the Czech Republic announced this Tuesday the end of its energy dependence on Russia, having completed the expansion of the transalpine oil pipeline (TAL), which allows it to supply crude oil in large quantities from the West.
“The construction of this expansion is finished. After decades, we will finally stop depending on Russia for energy and being blackmailed by the Russian regime and we have the guarantee of being able to supply ourselves from the West,” celebrated the country’s Prime Minister, Petr Fiala. , in statements reported by the German news agency dpa.
During a visit to the crude oil storage plants near the Czech capital, Prague, accompanied by the Minister of Finance, Zbynek Stanjura, both have celebrated that the extension of the TAL – which transports crude oil from Trieste, in Italy, to the refineries from Central Europe, passing through the city of Ingolstadt, in southern Germany – allows them to stop importing Russian oil.
According to ministers, the new system is expected to be ready in the coming months after final operational tests.
It should be remembered that in 2023, the country imported 58 percent of its oil from Russia through the Druzhba pipeline, according to data from the Ministry of Industry and Trade, although these imports – as in the case of Slovakia and Hungary – They are temporarily exempt from the sanctions imposed by the European Union (EU) after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In May of that year, the Czech Government committed to increasing the capacity of its connection with the TAL gas pipeline as an alternative source of supply for Russian crude oil, and a month later it assured that it could end its dependence on it by mid-2025. at the latest.
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