That was Orban’s plan: they deliberately didn’t look for alternatives to Russian oil, and you can’t switch the source of a full country in a blink. Building new pipes require time. There is a pipe from Croatia that could be used, but it only works for the other direction, it also takes time to make it usable for import. So it’s not really Magyar’s fault, you can’t undo 16 years of shenanigans in a moment. He is not even the PM yet, the new government will only form in a month. He only had one press conference. Or I don’t know what is the point of this article…
This is the only thing Magyar said about the topic, all others are speculations from the author:
At his first postelection press conference, Euronews reported, he said Hungary would continue seeking cheap energy from Russia. “No one can change geography, Russia and Hungary are here to stay,” Magyar said.
There is a pipeline able to transport oil from Germany via Czechia and Slovakia to Ukraine, which connects to the Druzhba pipeline, which then flows to Hungary. There is also a pipeline coming from Odesa, which connects to Druzhba. Hungary is also a fairly small country, so importing fuel from abroad is possible. Especially if you lower consumption by using EVs.
Gas can be brought in from the south, but also Ukraine if need be.
hungary already imports 1.3GW on average
at minimum that 40% of non-russian oil supply to hungary didn’t evaporate overnight, and there was supply from other places secured by other countries (norway will make a killing on this all)
What 40%? What are you writing about? I may miss something, this isn’t mentioned in the article and I don’t know about this.
Hungary doesn’t have a port, and afaik there are 2 ways we can get gas and oil currently: via the TurkStream pipe, or via the Druzhba pipe from Russia.
article says that hungarian dependence on russian oil went from sixty-ish% to almost 100% after 2022, and many countries started sourcing oil elsewhere, meaning they used to have other sources, but dropped them for some reason. this can be restarted
on top of druzhba, there is an oil pipeline called adria from croatian coast in omisalj that goes among other places to hungary. turkstream is for gas, but it’s not the only source for the grid, and there are lng ports on the adriatic coast, and all these pipelines also go to groningen gas field and norwegian shore and other places https://www.entsog.eu/sites/default/files/2018-10/ENTSOG_CAP_MAY2015_A0FORMAT.pdf
What? Hungary can’t turn its economy on its head overnight? No kidding. Of course economic dependencies can’t change over night. The important thing is that the a correcting course is set. With political will, things can change dramatically in a few years.
Creating unrealistic expectations and then crucify them for not meeting those on the first day, is just a way of being useful idiot for Putin.
also, has hungary built out renewables during orban tenure? that would help a fair bit in any scenario
