The owners of Czech refineries – Unipetrol, Shell, and Eni – are ensuring supplementary supplies from the State Fuel Reserves Administration and by imports of Russian oil in tankers to the Italian port of Trieste, and from there by the TAL and IKL pipelines to the Czech Republic. Oil from the first tanker was scheduled to arrive in the Czech Republic at the end of August. Mero, which administers the IKL pipeline, has negotiated with the owners of TAL an increase in the transportation capacity of oil to the Czech Republic. "Either the refineries will make a binding order for increased deliveries by the end of August, or they will make ad hoc requests, of course for an additional fee," Mr Pantucek said. The reason officially given by the Russian side for the continuing shortfalls in supplies of Russian oil in August is the same as in July: an attempt to make the system of oil supply to the Czech Republic more transparent by excluding a number of intermediaries. Russian oil does not go to the Czech Republic directly from its producers, but in most cases it goes through several intermediaries, among which there are a lot of firms registered in what it considers to be tax havens. Russian oil is transported to the Czech Republic by the Druzhba pipeline through Ukraine and Slovakia to refineries in Pardubice and Litvinov. The country receives roughly two thirds of its consumption from Russia, while around 30% comes from Azerbaijan through Georgia and Turkey to the port of Ceyhan, from where it is transported to Trieste in tankers. In Trieste, the oil is pumped into the TAL transalpine pipeline as far as Ingolstadt in Germany and then from there into the Czech IKL pipeline to the refinery in Kralupy.