"Potassium flow". Belarusian fertilizers will go through Russia, bypassing Lithuania
If Lithuania refuses to transship Belarusian potash fertilizers, Russian ports in the Leningrad region, Murmansk and Taman can take over transshipment. It won't be more expensive.
Minister of Transport and Communications of Belarus Alexey Avramenko stated this in an interview with the Belarus-1 TV channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Transporters are ready to ensure the transportation of potash fertilizers in the volumes that will be necessary, taking into account logistics - where it will be most profitable for the Belarusian Potash Company to ship - in the event of restrictions being introduced in the port of Klaipeda,” Avramenko said.
According to him, the Lithuanian side has not yet officially notified Belarus of the refusal; only politicians in Vilnius made a statement.
“We prepared in advance and assumed that such risks would exist. We have certain developments, and we will quickly solve this problem. There is enough time until December. The only question is how the Lithuanians will load their Klaipeda port, and what will happen to the Lithuanian railways, which today provide a large share of the transport of Belarusian potassium.
According to our estimates, the Lithuanian side will lose 100 million, not to mention the loss of jobs and everything that is associated with this if such odious decisions are made,” Avramenko said.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said that Lithuania will join European sanctions against Belarus in December this year. Belarusian products in the Klaipeda seaport account for more than 30% of all port goods. Belaruskali once invested 30 million EUR in the Birių krovinių terminalas UAB terminal.
Russian Railways are ready to transport 12 million tons of Belarusian fertilizers.
Previously, the issue of transshipment of Belarusian oil products through the terminal of the seaport of Ust-Luga and through the St. Petersburg oil terminal, which had previously been transshipped through Klaipeda, was resolved. Today, a million tons of fuel have already passed through Russian ports.
The Klaipeda port, which previously handled 4-6 million tons of oil products from Belarus (10-15% of the total cargo handling), received 23,7 million euros for this.
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