PJSC Ukrtransnafta plans to increase oil transportation in 2015 to 15.5-16 million tonnes against 15 million tonnes in 2014, company head Roman Sydorak has told reporters at the tenth annual Ukrainian Petroleum Market 2015 conference in Kyiv.

"The plan for this year is 15.5 million tonnes. I even talked to our customers - perhaps 16 million tonnes," he said.

Sydorak added that to increase transit it is necessary to start up the mothballed branch of the pipeline along the state border with Belarus-Brody.

"There are two lines there of 17 million tonnes a year. One of them is used almost in full: all the units work. It is necessary to launch the second one - it is impossible to carry out repairs on the first one without the second one," Sydorak said.

According to him, Ukrtransnafta appealed to the Cabinet of Ministers for permission to pump technological oil into the mothballed branch in May, however due to bureaucratic delays, approval has not yet been received.

Sydorak said that the "frozen" branch of the pipeline, namely the state border with Belarus-Brody, is filled with technological water that should be drained.

He went on to say that equipment has already been prepared and there is enough technological oil in Ukrtransnafta tanks.