Lukoil has commenced commercial operation of two wells at D41 offshore field in the Baltic Sea in Russia’s Kaliningrad Region, the oil major reported on Thursday.

Austria’s OMV oil and gas company has earmarked 44 mln euro to finance the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the first quarter of 2019, the company said.

Measures to normalize the quality of the Russian oil for Belarus are being carried out on schedule, and on Thursday clean oil was delivered on the territory of the republic, the Russian Ministry of Energy told journalists.

Russia is trying to appease its customers and looks to solve the problem of polluted oil supplies. Russia is thinking about pumping-out of poor quality oil from the pipeline on the territory of Belarus and Poland.

Belarusian pipeline operator Gomeltransneft Druzhba notified its Russian partners of stopping oil transit via the Druzhba oil pipeline following a similar decision by Poland,

The Gazprom subsidiary Nord Stream 2 has warned the EU Commission not to apply recently adopted rules for pipelines to its project still under construction.