There is talk of a historic moment: For almost 60 years, Russian crude oil from the Druzhba pipeline arrived in Schwedt in Brandenburg. With the turn of the year this is over. The refinery PCK with 1200 employees gets other crude oil via the port of Rostock - that means a much lower utilization of 50 percent.

A "first milestone" has been reached, said PCK boss Ralf Schairer optimistically on day two without Russian oil. The conversion of the system works. "The refinery is running stably, of course with less throughput." Additional crude oil quantities via Poland and from Kazakhstan have been discussed for a long time, but were still missing at the beginning of the year.

Even if not all questions have been clarified so far, "a reasonable status quo has been reached that can be worked with," said Brandenburg Economics Minister Jörg Steinbach (SPD), who praised the commitment of the PCK employees. On Monday he got a picture of the modern control room in the plant. In the control center, experts monitor the processes on around 80 monitors and can see whether problems arise anywhere.

The goal is 70 percent occupancy

Since the oil embargo from January 1, the refinery has been supplied solely via the approximately 200-kilometer-long pipeline from Rostock to Schwedt, which has never been running at full capacity. The preparations for the maximum operation of this pipeline have all been made, said Schairer. He is also confident that additional oil will come through other routes. Economics Minister Steinbach said: "Additional deliveries that have been announced from Poland and possibly from Kazakhstan must now follow as quickly as possible."

In addition to the quantities of tanker oil via the port of Rostock, crude oil is to be brought in via the port of Gdansk. According to the Federal Ministry of Economics, this should be enough to use 70 percent of the capacity of the PCK. Since Germany stopped all crude oil imports from Russia at the beginning of the year because of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, alternatives had to be found for the refinery. Large parts of eastern Germany are supplied with fuel from Schwedt.

Steinbach said he was hopeful that oil deliveries would be made via Gdansk in the second half of January. A test of the transport route from Kazakhstan is also planned.