Croatia's routes north: the LNG is booked, the oil pipe is disputed

Croatia now offers its landlocked neighbours two ways around Russian energy, and they are in very different condition. The LNG terminal on Krk is contracted, expanding and limited mainly by the pipelines that carry its gas inland. The Adria oil pipeline, run on Croatian territory by JANAF, is a physical alternative to Druzhba whose usable capacity is still in dispute, and whose main foreign customer has signed up for a fraction of what it could carry. The difference is not engineering alone. The gas route has buyers who chose it; the oil route has a buyer who uses it when it must.

What the LNG terminal has delivered

In November 2025 LNG Hrvatska began testing a new regasification unit that will double the terminal's technical capacity from 3.1 bcm to 6.1 bcm a year once testing is complete. For scale, Croatia consumed about 2.6 bcm of gas in 2025, 26 per cent of it from domestic production, and since January 2025 all of its gas imports have arrived through Krk. The surplus goes to Hungary, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The number that matters commercially is lower. According to the terminal's managing director, Ivan Fugas, commercial capacity will rise from 3.5 bcm to 4.5 bcm a year by early 2027, and the extra volume will be auctioned in the first quarter of 2027 on contracts running to 2040. Existing capacity is booked by Croatian companies and by Hungarian firms, with bookings extending to 2036. Supply is dominated by the United States, at about 66 per cent, followed by Trinidad and Tobago at about 11 per cent and Algeria at about 9 per cent.

The sources we reviewed do not break down the gap between 6.1 bcm of technical capacity and 4.5 bcm of saleable capacity. The likeliest explanation is the transmission network behind the jetty: regasified gas is only useful if it can be moved inland, and a terminal can regasify more than the pipes leaving it can carry. The published figures should be read as a ceiling and a usable volume, not as competing estimates. Fugas has also said that further expansion could be considered at state level if next year's auction sells out. That is the right sequence: demand first, steel second.

The oil pipeline's disputed number

The Adria pipeline carries crude from the Croatian coast inland towards Hungary and Slovakia. The Croatian side puts its annual capacity at 11 to 15 million tonnes. The European Commission's assessment is that it can meet Hungary's annual needs of 5.75 million tonnes and Slovakia's 4.66 million tonnes, about 10.4 million tonnes together. MOL answers that no more than 2.2 million tonnes has ever moved through the relevant section in a year.

Both claims can be true. Design capacity and demonstrated throughput measure different things, and a line that has never been run at full load for a sustained period has not proved it can be. That is why the argument turned to testing. After earlier tests that the two sides read in contradictory ways, the companies began an 11-month test series in March 2026, with American experts engaged by MOL and German experts by JANAF. The tests cover the pipeline, port, storage and blending, across seasons and crude grades, and are due to reach 40,000 tonnes a day in the autumn. Sustained over a year, 40,000 tonnes a day would be about 14.6 million tonnes, which is our arithmetic, not a test result. MOL expects clarity by early 2027.

Price is the second dispute. MOL says transport through Adria costs four to five times the average European rate. JANAF says it sets fees transparently, by route length and contracted volume. Croatia's economy minister, Ante Šušnjar, has called its prices competitive and argued that much of the cost difference reflects the discount on Russian crude rather than the tariff.

The winter the route was needed

The question stopped being theoretical on 27 January, when flows through the southern leg of Druzhba stopped. Ukrainian officials attributed the halt to Russian attacks on energy infrastructure; Hungary's foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, accused Kyiv of stopping the flow for political reasons. On 16 February Hungary and Slovakia asked Croatia to carry Russian crude via Adria, arguing that their sanctions exemption allows seaborne Russian oil when pipeline deliveries are interrupted. Croatia refused, citing EU law and US sanctions rules. Šušnjar said a Russian barrel "may appear cheaper to some countries, but helps fund war". MOL threatened legal action and a complaint to the European Commission. Croatia said it would not let the region's supply be endangered and offered non-Russian crude instead.

Druzhba flows to Slovakia resumed on 23 April after Ukraine completed repairs, with Hungary expected to follow. The episode demonstrated that Adria was available for non-Russian oil throughout, and that Budapest and Bratislava preferred to wait for Druzhba rather than switch at scale.

The contract that followed

In early August MOL and JANAF signed a take-or-pay contract for 2.05 million tonnes of crude in 2026, covering the whole calendar year retroactively. Take-or-pay gives JANAF revenue certainty and gives MOL guaranteed access. The volume is roughly what the pipeline has historically carried and about a fifth of the combined Hungarian and Slovak needs in the Commission's figures. It is an insurance policy, not a switch.

JANAF's own accounts show how much the relationship matters to Croatia. In the first half of 2026 the company earned €74m in revenue and nearly €28m in net profit. Of €70m from crude transport and storage, €52m, or 74 per cent, came from foreign customers. The pipeline's value to Croatia depends on volumes from the north; MOL's leverage lies in that dependence, and JANAF's lies in being the only non-Russian pipeline route to the Hungarian and Slovak refineries.

What to watch

Three things will decide whether the oil route becomes more than insurance. The first is the autumn phase of the capacity tests, when flows are due to reach 40,000 tonnes a day. If JANAF sustains that rate under independent observation, MOL's main technical objection falls away and the argument narrows to price. The second is the 2027 contract: a volume well above 2.05 million tonnes would signal a real shift; a similar volume would signal that Druzhba remains the default. The third, for gas, is the Q1 2027 capacity auction at Krk, which will show how much of the region's demand for non-Russian gas is backed by bookings rather than statements. For policymakers, the practical point is to settle the oil capacity question by joint, published test data before the next disruption, rather than during it.

Sources

• Pipeline & Gas Journal — Croatia's Krk LNG terminal tests new unit to double regasification capacity
• Kyiv Post — Croatia to expand LNG terminal as Ukraine seeks more energy imports
• Euronews — EU asks Ukraine to repair Druzhba pipeline as Croatia offers alternative route
• Euronews — Hungary's energy giant threatens legal action over access to Croatian pipeline
• Hungary Today — Eleven-month test series to assess Adria pipeline capacity
• The Kyiv Independent — Croatia rejects transporting Russian oil to Hungary, Slovakia as flows via Ukraine halted
• The Moscow Times — Druzhba oil flow to Slovakia resumed Thursday, officials say
• Hungary Today — MOL reaches oil transport agreement with Croatia's JANAF