A tanker with 84,700 tons of Azerbaijani oil for the Belarusian company Mozyr Oil Refinery was unloaded in the Odessa port.
The cargo had been delivered from the Supsa port, Georgia.
“A batch of Azerbaijani oil to be processed by Mozyr Oil Refinery was indeed unloaded in the Odessa port. The oil refinery is capable of processing various grades of oil,” the press service of the Belarusian petrochemical concern Belneftekhim told news agency BelTA.
It is not the first time when Belarus has used the Odessa port for the transit of ‘alternative’ oil. In 2010-2011, more than 1.45 mln tons of Venezuelan and Azerbaijani oil were shipped here, including those on swap agreements.
According to the press officer, Belarus is working on various ways of getting more oil since Belarusian oil refineries are not getting enough oil from Russia. On October 7, president Alyaksandr Lukashenka revealed that the issue of cheap oil supplies was being negotiated with Iran which was ’making a fuss about where its oil could be sold’ and ‘ready to reduce the price for us’.
As reported earlier, in Q3 2016 Russian oil deliveries to Belarus dropped by over 2 mln tons.
The conflict started as Belarus wanted to buy gas at the price of $73 per thousand cubic meters. Current price of the Russian gas for our country is $132. According to the Russian Energy Ministry, Belarus gas debt reached $270-300 mln. In turn, Minsk failed to acknowledge the debt.
Amid the gas row, Russia cut oil supplies to Belarus: Moscow was about to supply Minsk with only 3 mln tons of oil in Q4 2016. Thus, by the end of the year our country was to have received 18 mln tons instead of desired 24 mln. In response, Belarus raised duties on oil and oil products exported outside the customs territory of the Eurasian Economic Community (EEC).
Later, Alyaksandr Lukashenka stated that the parties had resolved the dispute. Russia promised to restore the previous volume of oil deliveries to Belarus while Minsk made a commitment to annul a decision to raise the oil transit tariff.
Belsat.eu
