Miasnikovich begged Medvedev for oil

Oil balance remains one of the most important problems for the authorities of Belarus.

Mikhail Miasnikovich and the chairman of Russia’s government Dmitry Medvedev discussed the issues related to the oil balances for the periods up to this year and 2014. The meeting took place today in the framework of the meeting of the CIS heads of governments council in Saint-Petersburg, BelTA reports.

“We agreed that the Russian party would shortly finish the domestic procedures for extending the regulations of the agreement on the distribution of export duty on oil products for 2014”, - Mikhail Miasnikovich.

Belarus’ Prime-Minister pointed out that a large number of issues of bilateral cooperation had been discussed with his Russian colleague. In particular, they agreed on holding a sitting of the Union State’s Council of Ministers this year.

The head of the Belarusian government pointed out that a principled agreement had been reached today on the mechanism of tolling the utilization fee on the conditions acceptable for Belarus.

The heads of the governments also looked into the issues related to further work on integration projects.

In general, according to Mikhail Miasnikovich, the meeting brought in a greater certainty to the issues of the development of bilateral relations: the discussion’s outcome was that approached were found that would be advantageous for Belarus and Russia alike. There is no detailed information on the meeting’s outcomes.

In the morning today information came out that there would be no meeting between the prime-ministers of Belarus and Russia in Saint-Petersburg.

It was previously reported that Belarus counts on importing 23 million tons of oil and 22.2 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia in 2014.

It was assumed that the respective ministries would discuss the execution of the energy balance for in 2013 with the consideration of the expected reassessment of the volume of shipments. After that Belarus and the Russian Federation will proceed with discussing the balance of shipments for 2014.

According to the first deputy Minister of Economy of Belarus Anatol Filonau, the Belarusian party will not receive the 23 million tons of oil, declared in the balance, from Russia in 2013. He reminded that in September 2013 Belarus received 400 thousand tons of oil less than it was due, because of Russia’s reducing the volumes of oil transported by the Druzhba pipeline.