Moscow Cuts Deliveries of Petroleum Products to Belarus

A number of Russian oil companies are ordered to cut the supply of motor fuel to Belarus.

Two traders and a profile official informed tut.by.

The Ministry of Energy considers it inappropriate to supply large quantities of Russian petroleum products (in particular, diesel fuel) to Belarusian companies "because of large amount of oil refining in Belarus", Belarusian businessmen got acquainted with the copy of the letter inform.

"We bought diesel there, because it's economically practicable. It is more expensive here. But Moscow has not allowed to sell to Belarusians", a Belarusian businessman said. "It was not a secret that a significant share of diesel fuel at Belarusian filling stations was produced in Russia. Belarusian petroleum products went to Ukraine and to the West, this is a more profitable business and requires approval from the top. That was not our deal," another interlocutor added.

The Ministry of Energy of Russia did not comment on the situation.

The other day the media launched information about the cessation of Russian diesel fuel supply to Ukraine. According to Kommersant, the Ukrainian Rosneft counterpart Glusco Energy refused the March shipments of 300 thousand tons. In the view of interlocutors of the Russian press, Ukrainian consumers might prefer Belarusian diesel fuel which is produced from duty-free Russian oil. "That could also become one of reasons for restrictions", a source in oil sphere assumes.

A year ago Gazprom and Tatneft with their own filling stations in Belarus suspended the supply of petroleum products to Belarus. Then it was connected with violation of the agreement by the Belarusian side. Such behavior of Minsk is clear: it is more profitable to sell petrol to Europe, it costs 2.5 times higher. However, there was another way of logic thinking of Russian companies: minimized taxes - deliveries to Belarus are not considered exports - and raised money, because it is more profitable to supply petrol on the Belarusian market than to Russian filling stations.

In January 2017 Belarus shipped less than 2000 thousand tons of petroleum products to Russia. Statistics of foreign trade in goods shows.

Because of the gas dispute the supply of the Russian oil to Belarus decreased from 24 to 18.5 million tons in 2016. A month ago Aliaksandr Lukashenka said that Russia had threatened to reduce the delivery to "12 million tons". In the first quarter Russia planned to deliver 4 million tons to Belarus. The delivery schedule for the second quarter is not yet available, but it is planned to maintain the delivery level of the first quarter, the press service of the Ministry of Energy of Russia says.

Belarus lifts 1.6 million tons of its own oil which is completely exported.