BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

09/01/2007

Russia may seek international support over Belarus oil tapping

MOSCOW. January 9. KAZINFORM. - Russia's economics ministry said Moscow might turn to international organizations to make Belarus compensate the damage it caused by tapping Russia's Europe-bound oil.

Poland and Germany, which receive Russian oil through the northern leg of the Druzhba pipeline going through Belarus, said Monday Russian oil supplies had been suspended.

"We do not rule out such a possibility," a deputy economics minister, Andrei Sharonov, said but did not specify which organizations he was talking about.

Semyon Vainshtok, head of Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft, said Belarus had been tapping Russian oil destined for European customers since January 6.

Russia and Belarus are embroiled in an energy dispute after Moscow doubled the gas price for Minsk to $100 per 1,000 cu m from January 1, and also imposed an oil export duty of $180.7 per metric ton for the ten-million nation. Belarus responded January 3 by introducing a transit duty of $45 per metric ton of Russian oil, Kazinform quotes RIA Novosti.

Russia's Sharonov also said Russian companies notified their western partners that problems with oil transit via Belarus were force majeure, which prevented companies from fulfilling their obligations to foreign customers.

He said officials from Russian ministries and agencies concerned and Transneft managers had gathered for an emergency session and agreed that Russia would only resume negotiations with Belarus if it abolished the oil transit duty.

Sharonov also said Transneft proposed that Belarus compensate for oil shortfalls of Western companies with the oil "arrested" by Minsk, which totals several hundreds of thousands of metric tons.

Source:

http://www.inform.kz/showarticle.php?lang=eng&id=147549