Official: Russia to raise oil supplies after Minsk repays gas debt

MOSCOW/MINSK, Apr 5 (PRIME) -- Russia will start boosting duty-free oil supplies to Belarus on April 13 only if Minsk repays for supplied gas, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich told reporters on Wednesday.

“In case we receive payment for gas for the previous period – then yes, they can start. Only in this case,” he said.

Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Semashko said that Minsk had agreed with Moscow on resumption of oil supplies in the previous volume of 24 million tonnes annually until 2024. Supplies will be resumed no later than on April 13, he said.

Dvorkovich said earlier that Belarus will pay over U.S. $720 million to Russian gas giant Gazprom’s unit as part of settlement of the accumulated gas debt, while Gazprom will provide a discount on gas supplies to Belarus for 2018–2019.

The size of discount will be announced over the next few days, Dvorkovich said. “It has already been defined, just legal proceedings are being completed,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said late Monday following talks with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko that Moscow and Minsk had agreed to settle their oil and gas disputes in 10 days.

Semashko has estimated economic effect from agreements reached with Russia in the oil and gas sphere at around $500 million in 2017 and $800 million both in 2018 and 2019.

“As a result...summing up all these issues - oil, gas, etc - it is around $500 million of economic effect for Belarus in 2017, and about $800 million annually in 2018–2019,” he said.

Semashko also said that Belarus and Russia plan to bring prices of gas supplies to Minsk in line with prices for adjacent Russian regions by 2025.

“The task is to make the price of gas supplies to Belarus equal or very close to the price, which is in Russia, at least in that price zone which borders with us – the Smolensk and Bryansk regions, Novgorod, and Moscow by January 1, 2025,” he said.

Belarus and Russia found a compromise on the gas issue for the next three years, and the price of Russian gas for Minsk will be reduced from next year.

A source at Belarusian government bodies told PRIME that the Belarusian delegation plans to discuss agreements reached in the oil and gas sphere in Moscow this week.

In early 2016, Minsk said that Russian prices for gas are unfair and started paying less for it unilaterally. Moscow cut duty-free oil supplies to Belarus saying there were shortfalls in duty-free oil product shipments to Russia, which Minsk was to carry out in return for the oil.

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