BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

10/01/2007

Russia, Belarus resume talks on oil transit dispute

MOSCOW, Jan 10 (Prime-Tass) -- Russia and Belarus resumed talks Wednesday on their dispute over oil transit, Alla Borisenkova, an assistant to Russian Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref, told reporters.

The Russian delegation is headed by Gref, while the Belarusian delegation is headed by Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Kobyakov, she said.

The previous round of Russian-Belarusian talks on oil transit, which was held on Tuesday, yielded no results.

Earlier on Wednesday, Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Andrei Sharonov said that Belarus' abolition of its U.S. $45 per tonne duty on Russian oil transit cleared the way for further negotiations.

"We are happy with Belarus' decision to lift its customs duty (on Russian oil transited through Belarus), which we think was imposed illegally. Thus the main obstacle to starting negotiations has been removed," he said.

The oil transit duty was imposed earlier this month and abolished on Wednesday. The abolition followed a report by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko's press office that Lukashenko had reached a compromise on the countries' dispute over oil transit with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

During the upcoming talks, Russia and Belarus are expected to discuss the introduction by Russia of a $190 per tonne duty on oil exports to Belarus and issues linked to Belarus' duty on exports of oil products produced from Russian crude, Sharonov said.

Russia slapped the duty on oil exports to Belarus in December 2006. Previously Belarus imported the oil free of duty. Under a bilateral agreement, Belarus was expected to transfer to Russia 85% of duties on its exports of oil products produced from Russian crude. However, Belarus has refused to transfer such funds to Russia.

Sharonov also said that Semyon Vainshtok, chief executive of Russia's oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, had told him that the company had not yet resumed oil transit via the Druzhba, or Friendship, pipeline through Belarus to Europe. A Transneft spokesman also told Prime-Tass Wednesday that Gomeltransneft-Druzhba, the operator of the Druzhba pipeline owned by the Belarusian government, had not yet informed the Russian company about the resumption of Russian oil transit.

The statements contradict a statement by a Transneft source earlier on Wednesday that the oil transportation company had resumed oil transit through the pipeline.

Sharonov added that Belarus might have started supplying on its own the 80,000 tonnes of oil that it previously seized from Transneft. He said that he hoped Belarus would return the oil to Transneft.

Belarus seized the oil earlier this month, claiming it had not been properly cleared by its customs authorities following the introduction of the transit duty, while Russia accused the former Soviet republic of stealing the oil. On Monday, Belarus interrupted Russian oil deliveries to Europe via the Druzhba pipeline before Transneft stopped pumping its oil to Belarus as well.

Source:

http://www.prime-tass.com/news/show.asp?topicid=0&id=412855