Strategic Energy Map

Oil pipeline

Druzhba Pipeline (Northern Branch)

Russia (Samara) through Belarus and Poland to Germany (Schwedt). World's longest oil pipeline network.

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Overview

Russia (Samara) through Belarus and Poland to Germany (Schwedt). World's longest oil pipeline network. ~5,500 km total. Capacity ~60 million tonnes/yr. Built 1964. Northern branch continues to operate, supplying the Schwedt refinery.

Geopolitical context

Named "Friendship" in Russian — built to bind Eastern Bloc economies to Soviet energy. The Schwedt refinery in eastern Germany was purpose-built for Urals crude and is extremely difficult to switch to alternative grades. Germany has had to broker complex arrangements (Kazakh crude via Druzhba, tanker deliveries to Rostock) to keep it running under EU sanctions. Poland has fully pivoted to non-Russian supply via Gdańsk port. The pipeline's continued partial operation illustrates how legacy infrastructure creates lock-in that outlasts the political relationships it was built to serve.

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