BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

09/01/2007

Moscow-Minsk talks on oil transit to Europe disrupted

The Moscow-Minsk talks on oil transit to Europe were disrupted, REGNUM is told by a competent source in energy industry. According to the source, members of the Belarusian delegation already returned to the embassy with no result.

It is worth mentioning, there are already two delegations of the Belarusian government in Moscow, represented by Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Kobyakov and Deputy Economy Minister Vladimir Naidunov. On January 9, the Minsk representatives discussed the oil problem in the Kremlin. According to sources in minsk, Vladimir Naidunov already announced that Russia had no negotiation position. According to him, the Russian side failed to name the time, when the talks can be recommenced.

As REGNUM reported before, transit of the Russian oil to European countries via Belarus was suspended. Earlier, Transneft CEO Semyon Vainshtok announced that since January 6 Belarus has illegally pumped out 80,000 tons of oil from the pipe. Before that, Russia introduced a new export duty for oil sent to the neighboring country worth $180 per ton. In response, Minsk announced new duty on transit of the Russian oil to Europe worth $40 per ton. On January 8, Poland announced that it stopped receiving oil through Druzhba pipeline.

Source:

http://www.regnum.ru/english/economy/764120.html