BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

02/01/2007

Russia, Belarus Set Talks on Russian Oil Tariff

By VOA News

Russian news reports quote Belarusian officials as expressing optimism for a deal with Russia governing export tariffs imposed by Moscow on Belarusian oil purchases.

The reports quote Belarusian Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky as saying experts were to begin work Tuesday on a formula for the Russian export duties first announced last month.

Russia says the new tariffs are a response to the Belarusian practice of purchasing as much Russian oil as possible at cut-rate prices, refining it, then selling it to other European states at market prices.

Belarus has offered to share income from those refined oil sales, if Moscow scraps the new customs duty.

The planned talks follow a last-minute deal late Sunday between the Belarusian government and Russia's state-run natural gas monopoly Gazprom that ended the Russian threat of a gas cut-off to Belarus.

Under the five-year deal, Belarus will pay $100 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas - a fee more than double the $47 fee paid Russia in 2006.

Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.

Source:

http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-01-02-voa64.cfm