Nikolay Tokarev, CEO of Transneft, made this statement during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on September 12, 2016.
Tokarev said that while about 9 million tons of oil products were transhipped via Baltic countries in 2015 year, this year's volume will be about 5 million tons and by 2018 freight flow to the Baltic region will come to zero.
Transneft plans to use Russian ports instead and has already reoriented freight flow from the Baltic ports, Ventspils and Riga, to Ust-Luga and Novorossiysk.
Part of the oil pipelines currently not used for shipping oil will be used for oil product shipments, explained Tokarev.
Latvia's state-owned railway company Latvijas Dzelzcels is getting ready for Russia's plans to stop the oil product export via Baltic ports by 2018, the company's board chairman Edvins Berzins said in an interview with the public Latvian television on September 13, 2016.
Berzins said that Russia's plans had been known already a while ago, therefore Latvijas Dzelzcels is working actively to replace these cargos.
He said that Russia's plans to halt oil product exports via Baltic ports are not related with politics, but with the fact that Russia has been investing in its ports in the past years and the investments should return. According to his estimates, Latvijas Dzelzcels might lose up to 10 mln tons of cargos.
