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The export of crude oil from Russia to Ukraine showed no shrinkage lately, representatives of industrial trade unions have said.
“We have no information export to Ukraine has reduced,” an adviser to the Union of Oil Exporters, German Sakulin has said. “Nothing terrible has happened, Russian companies keep supplying fuel as before. Proceeding from their economic interests.”



The president of the Oil and Gas Producers’ Union, Gennady Shmal has confirmed this. He expressed the certainty a compromise would be found.



He called upon the Ukrainian authorities for a calm solution. He did not rule out that “Russian companies are forced to act with greater caution in view of the continuing debates in Ukraine the privatization of oil refineries may be reconsidered.”



“Such statements certainly make oil producers to create a safety net,” Shmal said.



The oil and gas producers’ union leader believes that “any government has the right to influence prices in the markets of petroleum products.



However, “this is an instrument that cuts both ways and should be used carefully.”



The expert called for “distinguishing between Russia and Russian companies,” because “in the context of a market economy any concern can select its strategy and tactic in this or that region.”



He recalled that at a certain point “Ukraine opposed the Russian companies’ proposal for reversing the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline.”



“Now this project benefits the Ukrainian economy first and foremost.”



Earlier, LUKoil and TNK-BP officials said the export of fuel to Ukraine had not stopped for a single day.



The deputy chief of the oil company Tatneft sales department, Vladimir Karpov has made a similar statement, an Itar-Tass correspondent reports from Kazan.



Whereas before his company exported 200,000 tonnes of oil a month, in April it exported 450,000 tonnes, and in the first half of May, 250,000 tonnes.