Russia still makes money from oil exports to Belgium, investigation shows
Russia is still making money from oil imported from Belgium, despite an EU ban on the purchase and import of Russian crude oil in force since 5 December 2022. This was revealed on Saturday in an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
Belgium has stopped importing oil from Russia, although it still accounted for a fifth of imports in 2022. However, a tenth of the crude oil the country imported in 2023 flowed through a pipeline that also makes money for Russia.
This oil comes from Kazakhstan, the Federal Public Service Economy confirms, and flows through Russia via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium's (CPC) 1,500km pipeline to a terminal on the Black Sea. From there, the oil is exported by large ocean-going tankers, including to the port of Rotterdam, from where it is pumped by pipeline to Antwerp.
665m euros a year
President Vladimir Putin's regime has already earned more than 1 billion euros from the pipeline since the start of the war in Ukraine, through taxes and dividends to Russian state companies, which hold substantial stakes in the CPC. The country currently earns 665 euros million a year from the pipeline.
Lobbyists have kept the CPC pipeline exempt from Western sanctions. Ten weeks into the war, an ExxonMobil executive urged the European Commission to spare the pipeline. And since the start of the war, Kazakhstan has already paid a US lobbying firm nearly 4 million dollars to keep the pipeline sanctions-free.
Ukrainian president Volodimir Zelensky told the European Parliament on Tuesday that oil was "the lifeline of Putin's regime". But according to Belgian diplomats, imposing sanctions on the CPC pipeline is not as easy as it sounds. They fear that it would push Kazakhstan even further into Russia's arms.
© PHOTO ATTILA KISBENEDEK / AFP
Related news
