UPDATE: Putin says Russia, Belarus agree to settle oil, gas dispute

(Adds comments in last two paragraphs)

STRELNA, St. Petersburg/MOSCOW, Apr 4 (PRIME) -- Moscow and Minsk have agreed to settle their oil and gas dispute in 10 days, Russian President Vladimir Putin said late Monday following talks with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

“We have agreed that we will settle our disputed issues in the oil and gas sector. We have resolved them. We have agreed how and when we will do it,” Putin said.

All outstanding issues will be resolved over the next 10 days, he said.

“We have found a scheme, which allows us to maintain our approaches, close our positions on prices. We have found compromises, and agreed on how we will work in this sector not only in 2017, but in 2018 and 2019 as well,” Putin said.

No controversial issues between Russia and Belarus are remaining, he said.

“At present, no controversial issues are remaining, we will move ahead, we will strengthen our allied relations in the framework of the Union State and we will work on strengthening the legal basis and on the development of the Eurasian Economic Union,” Putin said.

Russia and Belarus also confirmed their readiness to prepare and sign by 2024 an intergovernmental agreement on the formation of a unified gas market in the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union, Putin said.

“We have reaffirmed our readiness to do everything to develop common rules of the unified gas market by January 1, 2018, and prepare and sign an intergovernmental agreement on the unified gas market in the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union by 2024,” he said.

Lukashenko said that issues of refinancing the Belarusian debt to Russia will be resolved very soon as Minsk and Moscow managed to settle all disputes.

“The president has promised to give relevant orders on this issue today or tomorrow,” Lukashenko said.

“I would like to emphasize that we have no disputes remaining now,” he said.

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.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said that Belarus will pay over U.S. $720 million to Russian gas giant Gazprom’s unit as part of the settlement of the accumulated gas debt, while Gazprom will provide a discount on gas supplies to Belarus for 2018–2019. Gazprom will discuss the size of the discount with Belarusian colleagues in the near future, he said.

“We will not provide the figure, but I can confirm one more time that some intergovernmental agreements concerning relations in the oil and gas sphere will be revised, and once they are initialed, the Belarusian side will pay the remaining sum to Gazprom’s unit, that we will restore the volume of oil supplies of 24 million tonnes, that Gazprom will provide a discount as a reduction coefficient to the price formula from 2018 through 2019,” Dvorkovich said.

Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that a decision to settle the oil and gas dispute with Belarus was reached considering interests of both countries, but details of the agreement are commercial and confidential information.

“In this case the major part of reached agreements belongs to the category of commercial and confidential information, which can’t be made public,” Peskov said when asked whether Russia could provide a loan to Belarus for the debt repayment.

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