Belarus will not see Russian oil – suppliers have withdrawn applications
Oil supplies from Russia to Belarus, the restoration of which was expected from April 1, are again postponed.
This was reported by the Russian business publication Kommersant, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to the newspaper, oil companies that initially submitted applications to export 2 million tons per month via pipeline in this direction gradually reduced them by half, but did not pay for the transportation of even these volumes.
“On the market, this is explained by disagreements between Minsk and Moscow on the distribution of quotas between Russian sellers of raw materials, among which Belarus gives priority to the existing supplier - the companies of the Safmar group,” the article notes.
In April, Russian oil companies submitted applications to pump 633 thousand tons to Belarus through the Transneft pipeline system to the Mozyr Oil Refinery and 375 thousand tons to the Novopolotsk Oil Refinery. This was reported by
Advisor to the head of Transneft Igor Demin explained that “not one of the possible shippers has submitted documents for the execution of route orders,” and therefore the volumes of oil required for Belarusian refineries will not yet be removed from the monthly scheduled shipments at the ports.
The publication writes that initially, applications for pumping to Belarus for the next month from eight Russian oil companies reached two million tons, but gradually the producers abandoned them, since contracts with Belneftekhim have not yet been signed. Now there are disputes regarding the volumes from each supplier.
“In particular, Minsk insists that the priority exporter from Russia to Belarus remain the companies of Mikhail Gutseriev’s Safmar group, which in the first quarter were the only sellers of Russian oil to the republic (supplies amounted to 300-400 thousand tons per month). But other sellers do not agree with this, the main one being Rosneft. They demand that supplies be based on the principle of equal access to the pipe, that is, they should be calculated in proportion to the companies’ total production,” the newspaper notes.
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