BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

27/12/2006

Minsk Fails To Agree On Gas Price With Gazprom

Talks between Belarusian authorities and Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom on 2007 gas supplies ended without agreement in Moscow on December 26, Belapan and RFE/RL's Belarus Service reported. Gazprom proposed the establishment of a joint enterprise that would control Belarus's Beltranshaz gas-pipeline network on a 50-50 basis. Gazprom CEO Aleksei Miller said Belarus could pay $110 for 1,000 cubic meters of gas in 2007, including $75 in cash and the remainder in Beltranshaz assets. According to Miller, such a payment scheme could be maintained until 2011, when Gazprom is planning to switch to exclusively cash payments under market rates. "Time flies fast, and we think that full responsibility for the situation now, at the end of the year, where we still haven't signed a contract [for Russian gas supplies to Belarus], of course, lies with the Belarusian side, because Gazprom and the Russian Federation have come forward and offered the most preferential conditions [to Belarus], and we believe that these conditions are more than acceptable," Miller told journalists. The Belarusian government reportedly rejected the offer, reiterating that it would buy gas at prices not higher than those in Russia's Smolensk Oblast. "We still have time until December 31. I think we have a chance to reach agreement," said Belarusian First Deputy Prime Minister Uladzimir Syamashka, who represented Minsk at the talks with Gazprom. Belarus currently pays $47 per 1,000 cubic meters of Russian gas. JM

Source:

http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2006/12/3-cee/cee-271206.asp