Press TV- Poland’s biggest refiner PKN Orlen has announced a major purchase of crude oil from Iran thus becoming the latest company to join the already long list of European clients of Iranian oil.     


The state-owned PKN Orlen announced in a statement as reported by Reuters that it had bought 1 million barrels of Iranian Light oil.

It said the cargo had been purchased from the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).

PKN Orlen, which mostly refines Russian oil, said that the Iranian oil would be delivered to Naftoport in Gdansk in January and then transported to PKN's refinery in Plock.

"The processing of the feedstock most recently delivered from Iran will be a basis for further plans regarding supplies from that direction," PKN said in its statement.

The first Polish company to purchase oil from Iran after the removal of sanctions against the country in January was Grupa Lotos.

In August, it announced that it had bought 2 million barrels of crude from Iran in a one-off purchase that had been carried out in late June.

The growing purchases of Iranian oil by Polish companies come as the country is trying to reduce its reliance on Russian oil.

To the same effect, Lotos announced in September that it was working on a long-term crude oil purchase agreement with Iran.

“After the Iranian oil is refined, we will have detailed results of the analysis, which will confirm whether we will ultimately sign a long-term agreement with Iran on oil supplies to Gdansk,” Marcin Jastrzebski, the deputy head of Lotos, was quoted by the media as saying.