MOSCOW: Belarus plans to hike the price for Russia’s oil transit by 20.5% starting January 1, 2017, a source in one of the country’s oil transportation companies told TASS. “Gomeltransneft Druzhba and Polotsktranspetrol Druzhba have already submitted respective notifications to Transneft,” he said.
According to Transneft official representative Igor Demin speaking with TASS, the company has received those proposals and is studying them, but so far considers them groundless. “In accordance with the policy of imposing tariffs, we’ll submit those requests to FAS (Federal Antimonopoly Service – TASS) with a notification that we are against this hike,” he said.
The decree of Belarus’ Ministry of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade dated September 28, 2016, raised tariffs on transit of Russian oil through the territory of the republic by an average of 50%. The document was to come into force on October 11, 2016. However, on October 10, Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Vladimir Semashko said that Minsk had cancelled its decision to raise tariffs on transit of Russian oil in exchange for restored volumes of oil supplies to the Belarusian side. Minsk also had to fully repay its debt for Russian gas supplies, amounting to more than $300 mln.
