Page 7 - FSUOGM Week 07 2020

FSUOGM PIPELINES & TRANSPORT FSUOGM
Belarus threatens to siphon off Druzhba oil
BELARUS
Belarus has not received regular levels of Russian oil since January 1.
BELARUSIAN President Alexander Lukashenko has pledged to siphon o Russia’s transit oil from the Russia-EU oil pipeline Dru- zhba, if Moscow fails to supply the “necessary volume” of oil in February.
“If Russia fails to deliver the necessary amount of oil [...] we start taking oil from the transit pipeline, too,” Lukashenko’s media o ce quoted him as saying on February 14. He added that Russia had supplied only 0.5mn tonnes in January, or 1.5mn tonnes less than expected.
e Druzhba pipeline splits into two routes in Belarus - a northern leg runs to Poland and Ger- many, and a southern leg to Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.
Belarus faces shortages of Russian oil for its two re neries, as Moscow halted crude supplies to Belarus on January 1 a er a contract expired, and the two countries are still in negotiations over a new agreement. Minsk said later in Jan- uary that it had secured a temporary solution for limited shipments from private Russian oil producer Safmar, without paying a premium. In past years Belarus bought oil on terms similar to those for Russian independent re neries, which involved a small premium.
On January 24, Lukashenko pledged to pur- chase crude oil “in the Americas, Saudi Arabia, UAE” following Moscow’s refusal to deliver oil to the post-Soviet nation in 2020 on Minsk’s terms.
“As much as 70mn tonnes of oil is pumped via Belarus for Belarus and for the West. And they have no problems. We properly and honestly pump this oil. Do you remember
polluted oil in summer? Russia has yet to pay for it, although equipment at our oil re ner- ies [...] has been damaged as well as the oil pipeline Druzhba. is is why if [Russia] fails to deliver in February, we will take oil [from the pipeline] to get 2mn tonnes,” Lukashenko added.
In July, Minsk said that the exports of Bela- rusian state-owned oil and petroleum conglom- erate Belne ekhim shrank by $800mn in 2019 compared to the previous year due to the crisis over the poor-quality oil supplies from Russia.
In May, Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Lyashenkon said Minsk was going to seek compensation for the direct and indirect losses caused by the poor-quality oil.
“We’ve talked to [our Russian] colleagues. Two kinds of compensations are involved: direct losses of enterprises and indirect losses.The direct losses are simple to understand - broken equipment,” he said. “Competent groups are working on it. e Russian side has assured us that Belarus will get compensations for docu- mented expenses. Naturally, we’ve raised the issue of indirect losses, too.”
During the first week of the crisis, Minsk reduced the workload of Mozyr oil re nery by around 40%, and of Na an re nery by around 50%. Belarus estimates its revenue losses at around $100mn as a result of Russia’s supplies of low-quality oil, according to Belne ekhim. Bela- rus was also forced to suspend exports of light oil products to Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states. ™
Week 07 19•February•2020 w w w. N E W S B A S E . c o m P7