BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

09/01/2007

No threat to end consumers of Russian oil-IEA

PARIS, January 9 (Itar-Tass) - The International Energy Agency (IEA) voiced support for quick and clear-cut settling of the situation around the Druzhba oil pipeline, says the organization's communique, circulated here on Tuesday.

The agency also emphasized that European markets can well cope with interruptions in Russian oil deliveries across Belarus, from which Germany and Poland suffered. Countries whom the crisis affected, have sufficient oil reserves for the near future.

According to the representative of the EU energy commissioner, cuts in oil supplies "has no immediate threat to EU energy security". Oil refineries alone, receiving crude from Druzhba, have oil reserves for 40 days. Poland has oil reserves for 80 days. The Czech Republic's reserves will last for 102 days, Hungary - 90 days and Slovakia - 70 days.

Therefore, the IEA claimed, "there is no direct danger that interruptions in supplies will affect end consumers of fuel". "If the situation with Druzhba drags its feet, oil refineries in those countries can get fuel deliveries from alternative ways, both via ports in the Baltic and via other oil pipelines (by-passing Belarus)," the IEA statement says.

An oil terminal near Gdansk, connected by a pipeline with a major refinery in Plock, will play an important role in this case. In the opinion of Polish Deputy Economics Minister Piotr Naimski, developments around oil transit along the Druzhba oil pipeline will make many in his country have a new look at the need to build an Odessa-Brody oil pipeline.

The deliveries along this oil pipeline were discontinued on last Sunday night as a result of a dispute between Russia and Belarus. This affected other European countries, since the pipeline pumped daily 1.2 million barrels of oil to Europe.

According to the agency, these countries include Poland and Germany, receiving oil along the northern siding of the Druzhba pipeline as well as Ukraine, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic, getting oil by the southern siding.

Diplomats of the European Union and the US responded to the present crisis too. The representative of the European commissioner for energy called the energy crisis "a bilateral problem, popping up between Russia and Belarus", which, however, should not interfere with Russian crude deliveries to European consumers. "The EU countries should receive full volumes of oil at prices, fixed in concluded contracts," the representative underlined.

On the contrary, the US administration contended that Russia tries, as before, to use its energy resources as a political lever, especially with respect to neighboring countries. This idea was expressed last Friday by US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, commenting, at a request of reporters, on a contract between Gazprom and Belarus on gas deliveries.

Small doubt that reliability of energy supplies will be among key topics of the Tuesday meeting between Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany, presiding in the European Union from January 1, 2007, and European Commission chairman Jose Manuel Barroso who is about to come to Berlin.

Source:

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=11140523&PageNum=0

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