Russia will restore the previous volume of oil deliveries to Belarus, and Belarus will annul a decision to raise the oil transit tariff.
The Ministry of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade (MART) of Belarus issued Resolution No.34 of 7 October 2016 to annul Resolution No.30 of 28 September 2016 that envisaged the increase in tariffs on the transit of oil. The Resolution also introduces the earlier-valid tariffs on oil transportation through the major pipelines of Gomeltransneft Druzhba and Polotsktransneft Druzhba, state-run news agency BelTA reports.
It is the state budget that will make up for all the losses suffered by Russian giant Gazprom. According to the newspaper Kommersant, this year the subsidy may amount to 25 bn Russian rubles ($400.8 mln), and to 56 bn ($897.8 mln) in 2017.
According to the agreement, the price of the Russian gas for belarus remains the same, but the Belarusian side states that the Russian Federation will use a ‘budgetary compensation mechanism’ to actually reduce the sum paid Minsk. Thus, the actual price will go down, but the costs will be born not by Gazprom, but by the Russian budget. Russia will resume the supply of oil to our country in the amount of up to 24 mln tons per year, and Minsk, in turn, will not raise the fees of Russian oil transit through its territory.
Belarus has to pay off about $300 mln debt. The actual price of gas in Russian rubles will be reduced retroactively from July 1 – by approximately 30%. In the future, the price of gas for Belarus will be calculated as Russia’s Unified Gas Supply System’s average price multiplied by a rate of increase. A formula that will determine the price in Russian rubles will be applied instaed of the ‘dollar’ one.
In 2017, the price of gas for Belarus is expected to amount to 6,000 Russian rubles (about $100) per 1000 cubic meters.
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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: In Q4 2016 Moscow will supply Minsk with only 3 mln tons of oil. Thus, by the end of the year our country will receive 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).
belsat.eu, following «Коммерсант»
