Russian oil pipeline monopoly Transneft expects oil supplies handled by its network to total 439 million to 440 million tonnes in 2021, the company said on Tuesday, down from previous estimates of 440 million to 450 million tonnes in a previous forecast.

It is also down from just over 442 million tonnes pumped in 2020. Transneft handles more than 90% of oil produced in Russia.

Transneft also said it expects the final compensation payments over tainted oil to run into 2022, compared with earlier expectations for mid-2021, but is no longer planning to increase its provisions for tainted oil settlements.

Up to 5 million tonnes of tainted Russian oil was contaminated en route to central Europe via the Druzhba pipeline. Organic chlorides were found in Urals crude export flows in April 2019.

Speaking at a conference call with investors, Transneft’s first vice president, Maxim Grishanin, said the company has recently settled two dirty oil cases with Russian energy giant Rosneft regarding supplies to France’s Total and the Mozyr refinery in Belarus.

He said that Transneft has used around 13.8 billion roubles ($188 million) from the reserves it set up to cover the dirty oil compensation costs, out of 30.3 billion roubles of total outlays.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Oksana Kobzeva; Writing by Alexander Marrow and Vladimir Soldatkin. Editing by Jane Merriman and Jonathan Oatis)