MOSCOW - The substance that brought one of Russia’s longest oil pipelines to a halt in April was carbon tetrachloride, a lethal chemical meant to be tightly controlled by an international agreement, according to the results of three separate, undisclosed tests seen by Reuters.
The presence of carbon tetrachloride suggests Russia has not stamped out illegal trade in the chemical, five oil industry sources said. Carbon tetrachloride is supposed to be strictly regulated by Russian law, these sources said. Russian authorities are still investigating the contamination, which affected about 5 million tonnes of oil in the pipeline stretching from Russia to Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic via Belarus and Ukraine.
Its production has dropped sharply since the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement to limit the use of ozone-depleting substances, took effect in 1989. The traders, who asked not to be named, said producers of the chemical often give it away or even pay third parties to take it away, making it lucrative to mix with oil and sell the resulting mixture on at a profit.
In each case, any waste containing carbon tetrachloride must be burned and cannot be bought or sold without a guarantee that it will be processed or destroyed, according to Russian law and the terms of the Montreal Protocol.
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