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The Romanian Ministry of Energy has declared a state of emergency in the energy sector after two tankers delivered contaminated oil from Azerbaijan.

“OMV Petrom accepted a vessel with Azerbaijani crude oil (92,000 tons) loaded in the port of Ceyhan (Turkey). This batch was contaminated with organic chlorides present in the loading port. In addition, after an analysis, Petrom decided to refuse another batch of 92,000 tons. Thus, 184,000 tons of imported crude oil became unavailable for delivery to the Petrobrazi refinery,” the Romanian Ministry of Energy reported.

The reason is the contamination of several tanks of the terminal of BTC Pipeline Company, the operator of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, with a corrosive substance.

Moscow uses oil contamination and FSB port controls to restrict Kazakh and Azerbaijani exports, leveraging market disruption for geopolitical and economic gain.

At the Turkish terminal marking the final destination of the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline — used to transport Azerbaijani crude to the Mediterranean market — oil with a high content of organochlorine compounds, hazardous for refining, was discovered on 22 July. Under normal circumstances, this would have drawn attention only from industry specialists.

In this regard, the Romanian company asked the authorities to immediately open the strategic state reserve and allocate 80,000 tons of oil and 30,000 tons of diesel fuel. However, in order to open up the reserve, Romania must declare a state of emergency, which it has notified the European Commission about.

Russian Ural brand oil has increased levels of organochlorine compounds. SOCAR does not respond to complaints.