RusEnergy

18 February 2008 - Upstream OnLine - Russian producer Lukoil has halted oil supplies to Germany this month in a renewed pricing dispute with the monopoly importer of Russian crude to the country, trading sources said today. "February supplies are zero. The company was due to ship around 520,000 tonnes (by pipeline) this month, then it halved the plan and later scrapped it all together. It is the same old story with Sunimex," one trading source told Reuters. In August last year, Lukoil reduced supplies to Germany in a bid to win better terms from Sunimex, run by Sergei Kishilov, a prominent Russian oil industry figure. It later clinched a deal to restore supplies from September. "I don't know whether other Russian producers are supplying crude instead of Lukoil. But we have heard some talk that (German) refiners have been looking to import crude by sea," the source told the news agency.