29 March 2024, Friday, 9:17
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Russian Federation Wants Full Control Over Belarusian Refineries

Russian Federation Wants Full Control Over Belarusian Refineries

Moscow is not averse to making Belarusian refineries “its own” to compensate for the tax maneuver.

At Christmas, social networks reported that Russia was ready to buy Belarusian oil refineries in Mozyr and Navapolatsk in order to compensate them for the consequences of the tax maneuver. Tut.by has tried to find out if the claims have substance.

Russia completes the tax maneuver in the oil sector. In 2019–2024, the export duty on oil, which Belarus does not pay when importing hydrocarbons, will decrease from 30% to 0% in the Russian Federation. At the same time, the mineral extraction tax will increase, which may lead to an increase in the oil price for Belarus to as good as the world level. From 2019, the Russian budget compensates its refineries for the increase in raw material prices with the help of the so-called inverse excise tax. Minsk cannot afford this, so it wanted to get compensation from Russia. But the pre-New Year negotiations between the leaderships of the two countries were not crowned with success. The Kremlin has an itch to deeper integration.

Russia dovetails the issue of compensation with the privatization of Belarusian refineries in favor of Russian companies. Alleging that they will pay compensation, but only to their own factories.

Belarus would like to get $ 10 billion for Naftan and its share in the Mozyr Oil Refinery, the Gaz-Batiushka telegram channel reported. Minsk assesses its losses from the tax maneuver over the next 5 years as $ 10.5 billion, and it wanted to get compensation.

“Yes, [the sale of shares] is really [considered] as one of the options,” – an informed source says. He notes that 42.58% of the Mozyr Refinery shares already belong to the Russian Slavneft, which is owned by Rosneft and Gazprom Neft. “But Russia wants full control in order to really run the plant,” – the source says. As for the value of the transaction, the “issue is being discussed.” “But nobody is going to sell the plants by the slump. It is critical to steer clear from [unfriendly actions],” – the source says.

It is worth reminding that in 2014, the Belarusian authorities already announced the conditions for the sale of a Mozyr Oil Refinery stake. Minsk was ready to retain 25% of the shares, putting up for sale almost 30% (17.76% of the plant shares directly and 12% of the shares through the purchase of 99.8% of OOO MNPZ Plus). The price of the state package was not indicated, but then Belarus estimated the Mozyr Oil Refinery at $ 4 billion.

In addition, the buyer had to supply fully both Mozyr Oil Refinery and Naftan with raw materials for five years, build another oil refinery with a capacity of up to 8 million tons per year, saturate the domestic market of Belarus with motor fuel “in volumes agreed with the Belnautakhim concern monthly,” as well as maintain the number of the Mozyr Oil Refinery employees and the high level of wages. But in the end, nobody wanted to buy the stake of the Belarusian refinery.

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