BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

23/01/2010

Another round of Belarus-Russia talks to be held in Moscow

MINSK, January 23 (Itar-Tass) -- The leadership of Inter RAO UES and Belenergo will hold another round of talks on specification of the contracts on supply and transit of Russian electric power to the Kaliningrad Region, representatives of both countries told ITAR-TASS.

Previous talks were held in Minsk on Friday and, according to the sides' representatives, they "promoted considerable rapprochement of stands." A Belarussian delegation headed by Belenergo general director Alexei Shirma is flying to Moscow to hold Saturday's talks.

Representatives of Inter RAO UES and Belenergo assured that they plan to sign the contract on upply and transit of Russian electric power soon, most likely at before the end of the next week. "At present, the sides have already begun coordinating fundamental provisions of additional agreements for 2010 within the framework of long-term mutually connected agreements on supply of electric power to Belarus and transit of electric power through the networks of the Unified Energy System of Belarus and the Kaliningrad Region to the Baltic countries," a representative of the Russian company specified.

Late in 2009 Minsk and Moscow failed to coordinate the terms of commercial supplies of Russian electric power to the Baltic countries via Belarus in 2010. Belarus maintains that as a result of the termination of work of the Ignalina nuclear power plant in Lithuania and the emergence of electric power shortages, Belarus' expenditures connected with the growth of electric power supplies to Lithuania and the Kaliningrad Region will increase. It was reported that Belenergo offered to increase the transit rate by 2.5 times, while during the talks held in Minsk on January 12, the parties discussed the growth of the transit rate by 5.5 times.

Russian Inter RAO UES reports, that it forwarded its proposals to Belarus late in December. The officials from the Russian company did not mention concrete figures, but said that the parameters proposed by Russia were mutually advantageous and that they took into consideration the growing expenditures, connected with the growing volume of electric power transit, as well as the tariff and balance resolutions of the Russian Federal Tariff Service for 2010.

Source:

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=14747824&PageNum=0


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