Druzhba Pipeline

The world's longest oil pipeline, carrying Russian crude west to Europe since 1964.

Overview

The Soviet system, whose name means friendship, runs roughly 4,000 kilometers from the Volga-Ural region west, splitting in Belarus into a northern branch to Poland and Germany and a southern branch through Ukraine to Hungary, Slovakia and Czechia, with the full network approaching 9,000 kilometers. It once moved over 2 million barrels a day. A 2019 organic chloride contamination incident halted flows for weeks along its whole length. Since 2022, Poland and Germany have quit the line, while the southern branch keeps delivering under a Ukraine transit arrangement. It remains the oily spine of central European supply politics.