PM: Russia gets extra warrant of Belarus’s debt payment to Gazprom

GORKI, Moscow Region, Apr 13 (PRIME) -- Belarus has provided additional debt redemption guarantees to Gazprom, but Russia will wait for the repayment before fulfilling the oil supply agreement, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a government meeting on Thursday.

“We’ve received additional promises and guarantees yesterday from the government of Belarus on the finished dispute. We expect the debt to Gazprom to be returned and after that we will proceed to the fulfillment of the agreements we are considering today,” Medvedev said.

He also said that Russia and Belarus have reached a compromise on the oil and gas issues.

“We have made decisions suiting both sides today, and what is important they are in general understandable and transparent. The first protocol envisages Russian crude supply from 2017 to 2024 to amount to 24 million tonnes a year by pipeline,” Medvedev said.

“The second establishes the order of gas price formation for Belarus until December 31, 2019 and elaboration of proposals under a program to form a united gas market of the Eurasian Economic Union by 2025 until January 1, 2018.”

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.

Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Semashko said earlier 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 Thursday (April 13), he said.

Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said that Belarus will pay over U.S. $720 million to Gazprom, while Gazprom will provide a discount on gas supplies to Belarus for 2018–2019.

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