By the end of this week a final agreement with Gazprom on sale of 50% of shares of Bieltransgaz, a Belarusian company controlling transit gas pipeline, should be signed. Currently Bieltransgaz is owned by the Belarusian government and Gazprom, each holding half of the shares. After the transaction is concluded, the entire company will be owned by Gazprom.
All the documents are ready, according to Valerij Golubev, a deputy chairman of Gazprom. He told Ria Novostii that part of the agreement which is to be signed on November 25th, is a deal of gas import to Belarus and transit through the Belarusian territory.
Tatiana Manionok, a Belarusian economist, estimated that Belarus will still pay relatively low price for gas. In 2012 a thousand cubic meter will cost Belarus 288 USD, which is the cheapest price in all the former soviet union countries. Still, the experts stress that selling the Belarusian pipelines will only increase the country’s dependance on Russia.
Belsat
