The TAL+ Project will be completed
by the end of the year and the Czech Republic will secure its
entire crude oil needs through the Transalpine Pipeline,
eliminating dependence on Russian supplies. The works are on
schedule, SIOT President and GM of the TAL Group Alessio Lilli
assured at the visit to SIOT of an institutional and
journalistic delegation from the Czech Republic led by Deputy
Minister of Economy Roman Binder and Zdenek Dundr, Vice
President of MERO, the Czech state-owned company shareholder of
SIOT-TAL. "The works," Lilli said, "will allow us to double
our crude oil pumping capacity to the Czech Republic from early
2025, when the country will no longer receive Russian oil
through the Družba pipeline. The facility "for over 50 years has
been a strategic and indispensable asset for Central Europe, now
the central role in the geopolitics of the continent will be
strengthened" and the Czech Republic will be "independent of
Russian crude supplies." The TAL+ project, funded by MERO,
involves the replacement of 12 pumps and 13 motors along the
Italian section of the pipeline and minor interventions. Across
the border, interventions are planned in the Austrian section
and in the Czech Republic up to the Kralupy and Litvinov
refineries. Today the pipeline brings about 3 million tons of
crude oil a year to the Czech Republic, accounting for 50
percent of the country's needs; TAL+ will bring more than 7
million tons annually. Binder recalled the "path started in
early 2022,+ now we see that at the end of the year the work
will be finished. In the past we received only one source of oil
from Družba, and since 1996 we have added the possibility of
getting oil from Trieste. From the beginning of 2025, we will
receive crude oil only from Trieste through TAL and TAL+."
Zdenek Dundr stressed that with TAL+ his country will be
independent "after 60 years."
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