Five Latvians and a Russian were detained near St. Petersburg for cutting into a diesel pipeline that runs to the Baltic Sea port of Primorsk, oil products pipeline operator Transnefteprodukt said on its website Friday.

The men were detained Feb. 8, according to the statement.

Police and employees from two Transnefteprodukt units discovered a 1.5-kilometer hose leading from a breach in the pipeline to a 20-ton storage tank. More than 40,000 liters of stolen diesel were recovered, according to the statement. The pipeline handles low-sulfur diesel from refineries including TNK-BP's Ryazan plant and LUKoil's Nizhny Novgorod facility, said Ilya Arkhipov, a spokesman for the operator.

(Bloomberg)