BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

29/12/2006

Belarussian PM optimistic about gas price talks with Russia

MOSCOW, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- The price of Russian gas for Belarus will be coordinated before New Year's Day, Belarussian Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky said on Thursday.

"We are practically satisfied with the course of negotiations held by our experts, and with the fact that an agreement has been reached on the price of gas for Belarus at 75 dollars per 1,000 cubic meters," Sidorsky was quoted by the governmental press service as saying.

Earlier on Thursday, Sidorsky had a telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart Mikhail Fradkov, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.

Belarus is buying gas from Russia at 46.7 U.S. dollars per 1,000 cubic meters. The current contract expires on Dec. 31.

Gazprom is demanding Belarus pay 105 dollars per 1,000 cubic meters next year, with 75 dollars in cash and 30 dollars in shares in the country's gas transport company Beltransgaz.

The prime minister did not explain, however, whether the Belarussian side is ready to pay the remaining part of the price with assets of the Beltransgaz company, as Russia's Gazprom wants.

This issue is being discussed at talks in Moscow. Beltransgaz head Dmitry Kazakov, who has the right to sign a contract, is currently in Moscow. However, Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said late on Thursday that there is still no progress at talks.

He stressed that the Russian company considered its offers to the Belarussian side "more than preferential and comfortable." "Nevertheless, there has been no progress at talks today," Kupriyanov noted.

In reply to a query about the transit of Russian gas to Europe via Belarus, he stressed that the situation has radically changed as compared with last year, when Russia could not sign a contract with Ukraine.

"There is a major difference here," he explained. "This is the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline, which is the property of Gazprom. Gazprom leases the territory under it, which means this is a Russian gas pipeline on the Belarussian territory," he said.

"And we shall certainly do everything possible to ensure deliveries to our European consumers in full. And we shall find a possibility to have our gas running through our pipeline," the spokesman said.

Russia provides about a quarter of the gas needs in Europe and about 20 percent of that gas transits Belarus, much of it to Germany, Poland and Lithuania.

Russia, the world's biggest gas producer, has hiked the prices of gas supplied to former Soviet republics.

Gazprom reached agreement with Moldova on Tuesday to sell the country gas at 170 dollars per 1,000 cubic meters next year, up from the 160 dollars it is paying now. Last week, Georgia signed contracts with Gazprom for gas deliveries in 2007 at 235 dollars per 1,000 cubic meters, a doubling of the price it pays this year.

Source:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-12/29/content_5544648.htm