Belarus has decided to brotherly raise tariffs for Russia
OJSC Gomeltransneft Druzhba announced its intentions to raise the tariff for pumping Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline by 21,7% in order to compensate for losses due to an incident with oil contaminated with organochlorines, which entered the pipeline in late April and early May.
This was reported by the Belarusian opposition TV channel Belsat, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“The plan is to raise the tariff just enough to compensate for losses from bad oil,” said Alpari senior analyst Vadim Iosub.
Director of the Russian Energy Development Fund Sergei Pikin believes that by raising transit prices, Belarus is trying to “resolve” issues with gas prices.
“They want gas to be cheaper. But since gas is not getting cheaper, let’s compensate for the cost of gas by increasing the pumping tariff. There is trade every time,” Pikin said.
This week, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak said that negotiations with Belarus on gas will begin when the integration process within the Union State is completed.
“It is unlikely that Belarus will agree to such integration, so the issue may drag on,” says Iosub.
Every year Belarus receives 256 million rubles for pumping Russian oil. Due to the increase in tariffs, it will gain an additional 56 million rubles. At the same time, the Belarusian side estimates its losses from pumping dirty oil in the spring to be twice as high.
“We need to remind Russia that Belarus has leverage. Don’t forget that your oil and gas go through Belarusian pipelines,” says political scientist Valery Karbalevich.
The Russian Transneft has already stated that it does not consider it possible to agree on an increase in tariffs for oil transit through the Druzhba oil pipeline, Kommersant reports. Gomeltransneft Druzhba had no actual shortfall in income. The Belarusian company’s appeal does not contain final data on the amount of tariff revenue for substitution operations additionally received from Transneft, as well as the approved oil transit schedule for the fourth quarter of 2019.
On April 19, Belneftekhim announced contamination of the Druzhba oil pipeline with organochlorine compounds. Russia's Transneft immediately acknowledged the problem, and on April 27, company representatives said the pollution was intentional. Sabotage occurred at a private oil terminal in Samara. Clean oil began flowing into Belarus in early May.
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