The Druzhba southern leg — offline since January 27, 2026, following a Russian drone strike on the Brody hub in western Ukraine — appears on the verge of a partial restart. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated at a Berlin press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on April 14 that the pipeline would be 'functional by end of April — not fully, but enough to function.' The specific caveat — that storage tanks cannot all be repaired but the pipeline itself can move oil — is technically credible: pipeline integrity can be restored before full tank farm reconstruction.
The signal was reinforced on April 18 when incoming Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar told reporters that Zsolt Hernadi, CEO of Hungarian refiner MOL, had informed him that flows could resume next week, with Hernadi planning a Russia visit to discuss oil supply arrangements (Rigzone, April 18). MOL is the primary end-user of Druzhba crude in Hungary, running on Adria alternative supplies at approximately 3x normal logistics cost since January.
Hungary and Slovakia receive approximately 700,000 barrels per day via the southern Druzhba leg. CEE refineries have been absorbing Adria crude at 3x cost for 82 days. MOL's Százhalombatta and Slovnaft's Bratislava refineries have maintained operations but at significantly elevated cost. A restart would remove one of the three simultaneous pipeline disruptions that have compounded the Hormuz supply shock.