Russia and Belarus reach agreement on oil and gas

Abstract:

Since the beginning of the year, Russia and Belarus had been unable to reach an agreement concerning how much Belarus should pay for Russian gas and the conditions for co-operation in the oil sector. On 10 October a compromise was reached, which envisages that the Belarusian government will cancel the 50% increase in charges for Russian oil transit which they announced at the beginning of October, and will pay Gazprom back its debt of US$300 million resulting from applying a unilaterally reduced price of Russian gas. In turn, in the coming months gas will be supplied at the contract price. These arrangements will be binding until at least the end of 2017.

In turn, Russia will withdraw from its decision made in June this year to reduce oil supplies in the third and fourth quarters to Belarusian refineries by around 5 million tonnes and will compensate Belarus for the losses resulting from higher costs of gas supplies.

• Primary Source

ESO: Background information: Rising tension in the relations between Belarus and Russia http://www.europeansources.info/record/rising-tension-in-the-relations-between-belarus-and-russia/

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