Belarus can fully diversify its oil import, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka said on Tuesday. The officials were discussing ways to streamline the operation of the oil processing industry in Belarus in 2020 and in the future.
According to him, Belarus will buy 40-50% of oil in Russia when we complete the diversification process is completed.
“And we can get 30% of oil through Baltic ports and 30% of oil through Odessa. There will be three sources,” Lukashenka announced.
Talking about the Baltic direction option, the president stressed the need of finding proper logistics solutions, in particular, transporting oil to Belarusian oil refineries via pipelines.
“It is not a problem to build a pipeline. By the way, they have a few pipelines which might be suited if we repair them and come to terms with Baltic states,” he said.
During the meeting, the Belarusian leader also recalled the recent talks with top American diplomat Mike Pompeo who visited Belarus on February, 1.
“I have discussed this topic with the U.S. Secretary of State, is they could help us with the infrastructure and oil supplies. And Pompeo suggested this oil at competitive prices. There was a statement at the Munich conference: they allocated $1 billion for the construction of infrastructure facilities, i.e. for the delivery of oil. We can also count on cheap loans from them for the construction of the above mentioned pipeline with the Baltic region. We need to erect a couple of links, and the government expects that it will take up to three years to build them. No, it will take 1.5-2 years at most! And we can find $100-120 million for these links ourselves,” state-run news agency BelTA quotes Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
In his opinion, Baltic states might also become the market channels for selling Belarusian oil products.
belsat.eu, via BelTA
