MOL Accuses Croatian Pipeline Operator Janaf of Price Gouging

Hungarian oil and gas company MOL has sharply criticized the pricing policy of Croatian pipeline operator Janaf. In a statement released on Tuesday, MOL accuses its neighbor of abusing its dominant market position and charging transit fees that are well above the European industry average.

Under the motto of “coming clean,” MOL published detailed figures to substantiate what it claims is Janaf’s unjustified pricing. According to these figures, the Croatian company charges more than three times as much for transporting crude oil from the port of Omišalj to the Hungarian border as is charged for comparable services on the TAL pipeline (Trieste–Vienna).

As the Hungarian company confirms, Croatian tariffs are even more than 50 percent higher than the fees charged by Ukraine for transit through its territory

– even though the Ukrainian infrastructure is exposed to significant stresses and risks due to the ongoing war, which do not exist in Croatia.

Janaf oil terminal Omisalj, Photo: Wikimedia Commons

MOL also points to a structural disadvantage of the Croatian route. While Russian oil reaches the region directly via the Druzhba pipeline (land delivery) without additional logistics costs, oil via Croatia must first be delivered by tanker from countries such as Libya, Saudi Arabia, or Norway. This already incurs additional costs of $20 to $25 per ton. Janaf’s “exorbitant” transit fees would thus make this route even more uneconomical.

Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in 2022, Janaf has increased its prices by more than 70 percent – a development that MOL has not observed to this extent with any other service provider.

Behind the scenes, the relationship between the partners appears to have largely broken down. As MOL confirms it, current deliveries are taking place in a “legally unclear environment” as there is no valid contract in place.

In addition to the price, a key point of contention in the re-negotiations is the place of jurisdiction. Janaf insists that future disputes be settled under Croatian law before a court in Zagreb. Until now, it has been customary in the industry to choose Austrian law and the arbitration court in Vienna. For the Hungarian side, this change is unacceptable.

To support its position, MOL presented a comparison table that standardizes the transport costs per ton over a distance of 100 kilometers:

Janaf (Croatia – Hungarian border): $5.3
Ukrtransnafta (Belarusian border (through Ukraine) – Hungarian border): $3.4
TAL / AWP (Trieste – Vienna): $1.4
BTC (Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan): $1.2
MOL (Ukrainian border – Százhalombatta): $1.0

The conflict continues to smolder, while MOL emphasizes that it is seeking an agreement but is confronted with a partner that is exploiting the current geopolitical situation to maximize profits.

Although Janaf has rejected the claims in an emotionally charged press statement sent to Hungary Today, saying that calculating the price “per ton per 100 kilometers” misses the point, as JANAF’s oil pipeline is 2.3 times shorter than Russia’s Druzhba pipeline. In their view “the only relevant criterion is the total transport cost per ton.” In fact both types of calculations are industry standard, and it is not the case that the “only” legitimate method for calculating transport fees is cost per ton. Janaf has not published its own cost per ton figures in comparison with other pipelines, such as the TAL/AWP, which could lay to rest any disputes about alleged price gouging. However, it remains a fact that as long as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is blocking the flow of Russian oil to Hungary, the Croatian provider is in a position of monopoly, which allows them to establish what is a “fair” or “unfair” price entirely unilaterally.

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