“Hungary will not give in. We will break the oil blockade and protect Hungary’s energy supply,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán posted on his social media account. Under his post, he shared an extract from an interview with Chair-Chief Executive of the oil company Mol Zsolt Hernádi on ATV’s programme ‘Straight talk’ aired on Monday evening. In this, Mr Hernádi said “we can lay down with good conscience that no damage has been done to the pipeline.” He added that after the outbreak of the fire, they had received multiple updates from their Ukrainian counterparts, confirming that they would put the fire out within days and would resume the operation of the pipeline.
In answer to a question, he repeated that they had received information to the effect that the pipeline would resume within two to three days. “They genuinely wanted to restart the pipeline. So, when they tell us that it’s two to three days, they also explain what will happen in those two to three days,” Mr Hernádi said.
He added: later the Ukrainian party informed them that the pipeline was not being restarted because there was no decision yet on the resumption of operations, and this, according to Mol’s Chair-Chief Executive, can hardly be described as a technical problem.
