The price of Russian gas for Belarus next year will decrease by $32. The Kommersant newspaper writes about this, citing a source familiar with the progress of intergovernmental negotiations.
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Moscow previously agreed to the pricing scheme sought by the Belarusian side. Instead of the current 132 dollars per thousand cubic meters there will be about 100. In addition, the dollar formula will be replaced by the ruble one.
When the scheme starts working, Belarus will pay Gazprom the debt for gas and penalties at the old price in the amount of about 300 million US dollars.
From 2017, the gas price for Belarus will be determined by the average price in the unified gas supply system of Russia, which will be multiplied by an increasing factor. It is expected that before the end of this year a fixed price for gas will be set - 6,3 thousand Russian rubles per thousand cubic meters. There is an agreement that the increasing coefficient will gradually decrease.
Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister of the Belarusian government Vladimir Semashko stated that Belarus sets itself the task of achieving prices close to domestic Russian ones.
“I always tell my colleagues, when there have been disputes over gas prices, formulas, everything, and so on, repeatedly, dozens of times, I say: “We don’t need cheap gas from you, we went to the Eurasian Union in order to have gas and energy resources in general at prices close to yours,” Semashko said.