No more trust: Russia and Belarus to execute all agreements

The Belarusian government agrees to execute the gas arrangements reached with Russia.

It was said by Beltransgaz Director General Uladzimir Mayorau.

Aleksandr Surikov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Russia to Belarus, told journalists on June 22 and at the press conference dedicated on the Day of Russia on June 11 the arrangements reached during the meeting of Belarusian and Russian presidents in Zavidovo must be executed. After the meeting between heads of the Belarusian and Russian governments that focused on payment for natural gas the ambassador underlined that “the arrangement on annual average price must be executed formally, contracts must be signed”.

After Beltransgaz received information bout the results of the top-level negotiations in Zavidovo, it sent an appropriate supplement to the contract to Gazprom. The draft document was modified taking into account proposals of the both sides, approved in due course, and has been waiting for signing by Gazprom. This issue was considered at numerous meetings and negotiations between representatives of the Belarusian and Russian gas companies.

“The only step needed is signing this supplement to the contract. We suppose the recent statement by Aleksandr Surikov will help this and implementation of gas agreements reached by the Belarusian and Russian presidents,” Mayorau said.

We remind that Gazprom company demanded Beltransgaz to pay off its $230 mln debt. Gazprom insists than Belarus should also pay the debt for gas supplies in January-April and fines and penalties for not utilizing the contracted volume of gas. Belarus responded in turn it doesn’t have any debts to Russia.

It should be reminded that on June 15, Russian Kommersant daily wrote that the cooldown in Russian-Belarusian relations and the demarche of Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who refused to visit the CSTPO summit in Moscow can lead to a “new attack on Minsk that will be a gas attack this time”.

The issue of the gas price for Belarus was discussed by Dmitry Medvedev and Alyaksandr Lukashenka back in December 2008. Then they agreed that the price would be calculated according to the following formula: the average European price with a decreasing coefficient 0.8 minus transportation costs and export duty. However, in the first quarter of 2009 Minsk “failed to notice” gas price increase from $128 to $210 per thousand cubic metres, and paid according to the previous tariff, which caused a debt to “Gazprom” of about 70 mln over the winter. In the end of March during the talks of the two presidents in Zavidovo a decision seemed to be found. Moscow allowed Minsk to pay for Russian gas at an average annual price of about $150 per thousand cubic metres, and the term of the final settlement of account was postponed till the end of the year. However, the agreement remained verbal. Russia can use this fact as a tool for additional pressure on Minsk, demanding to follow the terms of the contract of 2006 and pay for gas deliveries every quarter.