Norway's Equinor signs three-year contract with Poland's Orlen (updated)

ORLEN

20/08/2026 09:15

Recasts with detail, quotes and context
Aug 20 (Reuters) - Norway's Equinor EQNR.OL has signed a three-year contract to supply Polish refiner Orlen PKN.WA with oil from Johan Sverdrup, western Europe's largest producing field, the company said on Thursday.
The contract, starting in September, allows for the delivery of between 5 million metric tons and more than 9 million tons, Equinor said.
While the deal is flexible, allowing for various Norwegian grades, Johan Sverdrup's medium-heavy crude is a good substitute for Russian Urals, which Lithuanian and Polish refineries historically were configured to process.
Since Russia began its war on Ukraine in 2022, European countries have gradually stopped using Russian energy. Orlen stopped buying any Russian oil last year when it ended purchases for its Czech unit.
"This agreement is a concrete response to global market instability and demonstrates that resilience in the energy sector is built through long-term cooperation with partners that provide predictable supplies and operational reliability," Orlen chief executive Ireneusz Fafara said in a statement.
Delivering the larger quantity specified in the contract would represent 25% of Orlen's refining capacity in Lithuania, Poland and the Czech Republic and make Equinor Orlen's second-largest supplier after Saudi Aramco, which delivers some 40% of the crude Orlen processes.
The contract covers about 20% of Sverdrup's output, according to Reuters estimates.

(Reporting by Louise Rasmussen, Nerijus Adomaitis, and Marek Strzelecki, writing by Marek Strzelecki, editing by Terje Solsvik and Barbara Lewis)
((Louisebreusch.rasmussen@tr.com; +45 21 27 97 79;))