TAL+ project, by 2024 Czech Rep.independent of Russian crude oil

(ANSA) - TRIESTE, SEP 13 - 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." (ANSA).