Austria has become one of the first European countries to abandon Russian oil. The Austrian oil company OMV announced that the raw material, which comes from Russia, is no longer used, the Austrian newspaper Der Standard reported.
"The purchase of oil from Russia has always been very low, with the outbreak of war we have replaced it with other oil from the market," said a spokesman for OMV.
The most important oil supplier to Austria, according to APA, has been Kazakhstan for many years, with an import share of 38.9 percent. Libya comes second and third with 22.1 percent and Iraq with 20.7 percent.
In early March, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, OMV announced it was reviewing its involvement in projects in Russia. Despite the fact that Russia was one of the main regions in OMV's exploration and production portfolio, the company's executive board then decided not to make any investments in Russia in the future.
Earlier Vitol, a top oil trader, had said that the volume of Russian oil trading would "significantly decrease in the second quarter with the reduction of current term contract obligations," and by the end of 2022 the company would stop trading Russian oil.
The media indicated that major global oil traders were planning to reduce purchases of oil and fuel from Russian state-owned oil companies as early as May 15 in order to avoid violation of European Union sanctions against Russia.
