Orbán: Hungary looking for ways to bypass US sanctions on Russian oil

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said that his country is working on finding a way to bypass US sanctions imposed on Russian oil companies.

As reported by Reuters, Orbán said in an interview with Hungarian state radio Kossuth he had discussed the sanctions recently imposed by US President Donald Trump on Rosneft and Lukoil with Hungarian oil and gas company MOL.

"We are working on how to circumvent this sanction," the Hungarian prime minister said, without providing further details.

MOL's refineries in Hungary and Slovakia, with a combined capacity of 14.2 million tonnes of oil per year, are dependent on Russian oil transported via the Druzhba pipeline.

Last year, MOL faced supply issues when Ukraine imposed sanctions against Lukoil. At the time, the company signed agreements to acquire ownership rights to the "impacted" volumes of oil at the Belarus-Ukraine border to maintain supply.

Notably, after Trump imposed sanctions on Russian oil, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and Balázs Orbán, Political Director to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, engaged in a public dispute over Hungary's refusal to stop purchasing Russian oil.

Earlier, Sikorski also had a public dispute on this topic with Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó.

It is also worth noting that Germany is reportedly seeking exemptions from US sanctions for German businesses linked to Russian oil company Rosneft.