Iranian oil shipments handled at Polish refineries in Gdansk
Several months ago - in August last year - Gdansk handled the largest tanker in the port's history, which brought nearly 300,000 tonnes of Iranian oil for the Lotos Refinery, the Port Authority said in a press release.
Already at that time, it was likely that this would not be the only delivery of oil from that direction for Polish refineries, as lifting the international sanctions against Iran regarding oil trade and opening the EU market to the resources of the country, which has some of the largest deposits of oil in the world, matches Poland's policy of diversifying energy deliveries.
Meanwhile, the Port of Gdansk, with the Naftoport company's Liquid Fuel Terminal operating here, is the best place for handling energy deliveries by sea to Poland, as the annual handling potential of the terminal's infrastructure, with as many as five berths, is approx. 40 million tonnes. Such parameters make it one of the most competitive oil terminals on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, which creates favourable conditions for consolidating Gdansk's position in terms of handling liquid bulk cargo in this part of Europe.
Thanks to its connection to refineries via a pipeline system, the Fuel Terminal constitutes an optimal alternative to deliveries of raw materials by land. The terminal's parameters make it possible to fully satisfy the demand for oil not only of Polish refineries, but also to two refineries located in the eastern states of Germany.
The Port of Gdansk's accessibility for the largest vessels able to enter the Baltic basin is an additional asset. The terminal is equipped to handle huge Aframax, Suezmax, and VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier) type ocean tankers.
Polish refineries, both Lotos and Orlen, are successfully taking advantage of this potential. The former, which ordered the delivery of about 2 million barrels of oil which reached Gdansk on board the Atlantis tanker in the second half of last year, ordered another delivery of the Iranian raw material which will soon reach Gdansk's port.
This was also the case with the second refinery, PKN Orlen, which received a delivery of oil from Iran last Monday. In the early hours of the morning on 23 January, the Vilamoura tanker brought 130,000 tonnes of the raw material. Just like Atlantis did before, the ship set off from the Iranian export terminal on Kharg Island in late December and sailed to Gdansk across the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. The transshipment operations did not take long, only 24 hours, and in the morning of 24 January, the ship set off on its next voyage.