Oil pressure between Moscow and Minsk is increasing

Today Belarus is experiencing the consequences of its solvents business.

Reacting on that, Russia not only shortened the volume of the supplies of carbohydrate raw materials to our country in the IV quarter, but also forces Belarusian authorities to fulfill other obligations, which are completely unprofitable for official Minsk.  In particular, Moscow keeps insisting on Belarus to supply its oil products to the Russian market, naviny.by reports.

Belarus didn’t live up to Russia’s expectations.

In the current year Belarus exported to the West the major volume of the oil products made from Russian oil. In January-August 12.94 million tons of oil products were exported including 5.8 million tons to the Netherlands and 1.83 million tons to Latvia. Significant amount of Belarusian oil products was exported to Ukraine – 3.15 million tons.

Geography of Belarusian oil products supplies

January-August 2012 (thousand tons)

At the same time Belarus supplied Russia with only 144.3 thousand tons of oil products. Such a situation doesn’t suit Moscow.

“In the documents signed at the end of last year an obligation of the Belarusian part was agreed upon that it supplies 5.8 million tons of oil products to the Russian market. No one put these obligations off the table”, - an informed source familiar with the Russian position on the issue reported.

He pointed out that Russia very mush counted on receiving the Belarusian oil products.

“Russian oil products market is huge and it is not always filled with supply. This is why the supplies of those 5.8 million tons were specially set as an obligation of the Belarusian part”, - the interlocutor explained.

Nevertheless, in 2012 Belarus preferred to supply oil products to the Ukrainian market, not to the Russian. “The state of market is that it is more profitable for Belarus to sell oil products in Ukraine than in Russia”, - Natalia Shuliar, the director of the Russian company “InfoTEK-Consult”, which specializes in oil and oil products market research.

The closure of the Lisichany refinery in Ukraine in 2012 allowed importers, including Belarusian traders, to raise prices on oil products. As a sequence, market experts note, the wholesale prices on fuel in Ukraine became even higher than in other European countries.

“The Ukrainian market is more beneficial today. The country lacks a qualitative resource, so they buy the one imported”, - stated one of the trades, dealing with sales of Belarusian oil products in Ukraine, stated in a conversation with naviny.by.