Russia Probes Violations Related to Oil Quality - Energy Ministry

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak has established an interministerial commission that will be tasked with carrying out an investigation into a contamination of Russian oil coming through the Druzhba pipeline, the Russian Energy Ministry said in a statement.

"Upon the request of the chairman of the Russian government, Dmitry Medvedev, an interministerial commission for verifying facts of quality violation of oil transported through oil pipeline Druzhba has been created by decree of Energy Minister Alexander Novak", the ministry told reporters.

The commission will include federal governmental body heads and their deputies, including from the Energy Ministry; the Industry and Trade Ministry; the Federal Antimonopoly Service; Rostekhnadzor, the governmental environmental watchdog; Rosnedr, the federal agency for resources use; and Transneft.

The statement comes after Medvedev earlier on Saturday ordered a verification of quality violations for Russian oil transported by pipeline company Transneft to Belarus and Eastern Europe. Medvedev also asked for results of the inspection to be submitted to the Prosecutor General’s office.

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The problem with the quality of oil coming from Russia to Belarus and Eastern Europe through Druzhba arose last week. The operators of Russian, Belarusian, Polish and Ukrainian sections of Druzhba met in the Belarusian capital of Minsk on Friday, focusing on how to clean the pipeline system of contaminated oil.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak said on Thursday that those responsible for contaminated oil getting into the Druzhba pipeline would be brought to justice particularly as Transneft and several Russian oil refineries suffered serious financial loss due to the incident.