BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

09/01/2007

Russia's Gref starts oil transit talks with Belarus' Kobyakov

MOSCOW, Jan 9 (Prime-Tass) -- Russia and Belarus have started negotiations over terms of Russian oil supplies and transit after Russia's oil deliveries to Europe through Belarusian territory were halted, a Russian government source said Tuesday.

Russia's Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref and Belarus' Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Kobyakov are holding the negotiations in Moscow in the Russian ministry's main building, the government source said.

Earlier in the day, the Russian government declined to negotiate, demanding that Belarus lift a recently introduced duty on Russian oil transit as a pre-condition to any talks.

Belarus introduced a customs duty on Russian oil transit through its territory last week after Russia introduced an export duty on crude oil exports to Belarus, which enjoyed duty-free supplies and benefited from refining Russian crude and subsequently exporting oil products.

On Monday, Belarus interrupted Russian oil deliveries to Europe via the Druzhba, or Friendship, pipeline, while Russia accused its closest ally among former Soviet republics of "unauthorized seizure" of transited oil.

The interruption affected five European Union (E.U.) member countries, namely Poland, which gets more than 95% of its crude from Russia through Belarus, as well as Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. The cut-off also affected supplies to Ukraine, which also gets minor amounts of oil through the pipeline.

The Druzhba oil pipeline delivers about half of Russia's oil supplies to the E.U. or about 12.5% of E.U. oil consumption.

Source:

http://www.prime-tass.com/news/show.asp?topicid=68&id=412768