Ukraine will waste a strategic opportunity to become a major international oil transit route if it grants Russian oil exporters exclusive access to the newly built Odessa-Brody oil pipeline

Ukraine will waste a strategic opportunity to become a major international oil transit route if it grants Russian oil exporters exclusive access to the newly built Odessa-Brody oil pipeline, the US, German and Polish ambassadors to Ukraine said in a front-page article in the serious Ukrainian daily Den on 3 April. The 674-km stretch of the oil pipeline from the Black Sea port of Odessa was built to reduce Ukraine's dependence on Russian supplies and offer a competitive transit route to Western Europe for Caspian oil. But the commercial launch of the pipeline has seen a series of delays. Meanwhile, Russia has proposed to use the pipeline to pump its own oil in the reverse direction to Odessa and then ship it to Western Europe via the Bosporus. That would be a waste of the pipeline's strategic advantages and a lost opportunity for Ukraine to become a step closer to Europe, US Ambassador Carlos Pascual, German Ambassador Dietmar Stuedemann and Polish envoy Marek Ziolkowski said in the article. Any agreements with Russia "must leave room for non-Russian oil to flow through Ukraine's pipeline system if Ukraine is to benefit".