Russian oil flowed through the Ukrainian section of the Druzhba pipeline on Wednesday after a halt lasting months, officials said, unblocking a 90 billion euro ($105.79 billion) EU loan urgently needed by Kyiv, Report informs via Reuters.
The Druzhba pipeline has become one of the most politically charged pieces of infrastructure in Europe since a Russian drone strike damaged the pipeline in western Ukraine and stopped Russian oil deliveries to Hungary and Slovakia.
Hungarian oil group MOL said Ukraine has informed it that deliveries of Russian crude had resumed through the Druzhba pipeline.
"MOL expects the first crude oil shipments following the restart of the Ukrainian section of the pipeline system to arrive in Hungary and Slovakia by tomorrow at the latest," it said in a statement.
Pumping began at 12.35 p.m. (0935 GMT), an industry source said, asking not to be named because they were not authorised to speak publicly.
Shortly afterwards, EU ambassadors meeting in Brussels gave approval for the loan that Budapest had previously opposed pending the resumption of oil exports.
Outgoing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the Slovak government had accused Ukraine of delaying the repairs, which Kyiv denied.
The capacity of Druzhba, which in Russian means friendship, is 1.2 million to 1.4 million barrels a day, with the possibility to increase up to 2 million barrels a day. However, flows fell to a small fraction of that as a result of Western sanctions as well as repeated disruptions from drone attacks.