Two birds with one stone: the Belarusian “zmagar” spoke about “Putin’s oil club”
The American news agency Reuters reported that Russia may stop supplies to the Belarusian Naftan oil refinery in Novopolotsk due to fears of falling under US sanctions against Belarus.
Russia supplies Naftan with 5,5 million barrels of oil per month; the cessation of supplies means a complete shutdown of the plant in May.
There is no official confirmation of this information, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Belarusian political scientist Igor Tyshkevich, who fled to Kyiv, doubts that the reason is American sanctions. He draws attention to the fact that only Naftan appears in the Reuters report, but does not mention the Mozyr Oil Refinery, against which the United States also imposed sanctions. He believes that this is due to the fact that Naftan does not have Russian owners. In addition, the Mozyr plant has the opportunity to receive “alternative oil” through Ukraine.
“For Novopolotsk, if there was alternative oil, it came through the Baltic ports. Belarus is now very much at odds with the Baltics. In addition, Belarus and the Russian Federation have concluded an agreement on the export of petroleum products using the “take or pay” formula. That is, it does not depend on whether there is oil or not. You must supply petroleum products to Ust-Luga. If Belarus does not send oil products, it simply pays for the air to the Russian Federation,” says Tyshkevich.
He called the current situation “an oil club in the hands of Putin, which he will wave if Lukashenko does not comply with his demands,” referring to integration within the Union State.
However, the Belarusian-Ukrainian expert did not remember another situation related to petroleum products. On April XNUMX, Rosneft stopped supplying diesel fuel to Ukraine. In the country “victim of aggression” there was a shortage. Kyiv said it would negotiate the purchase of additional volumes of fuel from Belarus. Usually, Ukrainians bought it in Mozyr, but this refinery closes in May for repairs. Thus, problems with the sanctioned Naftan become problems for Ukraine.
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