“Not in the space of three days, yesterday Lukoil was ready to switch entirely over to non-Russian oil, with a reduced operating capacity for Neftochim, but enough to meet the country’s needs of fuel,” Delyan Dobrev, chair of the National Assembly’s energy committee and MP from GERB/SDS said.

• MPs call for immediate termination of derogation for Russian oil
  

Together with the chair of the GERB/SDS parliamentary group Desislava Atanasova, Dobrev walked out of the meeting of the Security Council at the Council of Ministers which discussed the proposal for the cancellation of the use of Russian oil by Lukoil refinery near Burgas.

“At the meeting it was made clear that despite the sanctions regime and the derogation allowing the sale of fuels of Russian origin only inside the country and in Ukraine, more than 50% of the fuels produced by Lukoil were exported all over the world. What we are seeing is Lukoil acting depending on how certain parties vote,” Delyan Dobrev said further.

• The oil refinery in Burgas violated EU and US embargo on Russian oil, CSD say
  

“The Putin coalition is a fact. An absolutely useless meeting, a waste of time for us,” said the chairman of the parliamentary group of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) Delyan Peevski, who also walked out of the council meeting before it had ended. Terminating the use of Russian oil before 1 March would mean enormous risks, the co-chair of We Continue the Change/Democratic Bulgaria (PP/DB) Kiril Petkov said after the council meeting. “We are talking about tax revenues into the treasury amounting to close to EUR 200 million until the end of the year, and EUR 25-50 million until March,” Kiril Petkov said.

Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov stated that the Council had reached the decision that the demand by GERB and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms for ending the use of Russian oil quickly shall not be implemented because it would mean a risk to prices and fuel supplies in the country.