Germany`s government said Thursday the gas dispute between Russia and Belarus is above all a bilateral issue and will not affect Russian gas deliveries to Europe. Russia and Belarus are currently involved in complex negotiations over the 2007 gas price for Minsk, which has been paying a discounted rate until now. The dispute is reminiscent of a gas spat with Ukraine early this year when Russia briefly suspended gas supplies, affecting consumers in Europe.
"The matter under discussion is the price formula and bringing current prices [for Russian gas] into line with world market rates," Germany`s deputy government spokesman, Thomas Steg, said but called for a transitional period in Russia`s gas price campaign.
"It cannot be done suddenly because it would deal a heavy blow to the economy," he said, adding that Germany so far had no reason to worry about the reliability of Russian natural gas deliveries, which go through Belarusian pipelines.
Germany`s economics ministry official Beatrix Brodkorb said the gas debates between the Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom [RTS: GAZP] and Belarusian authorities in no way compared with the gas conflict with Ukraine in January when far more substantial volumes of gas were at stake.
"Gas pipelines running across Ukraine had a pumping capacity of 90-120 billion cubic meters a year," she said, adding that Belarusian pipelines delivered only 20 billion cu m to Germany.
Brodkorb said Germany had vast gas reserves in storage, and was therefore well prepared for the winter season.
"As in previous years, Germany is well provided with energy reserves thanks to the efforts of German companies operating the country`s pipeline grid," she said.
Gazprom and Germany`s EON and BASF companies are building a direct pipeline to pump Russian natural gas directly to Germany and on to Europe across the Baltic seabed. The first leg of the pipeline with an annual capacity of 27.5 billion cu m is set to come on stream in 2010.
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