There are no obstacles to the development of cooperation between Belarus and Russia's Rosneft and RussNeft, Aliaksandr Lukashenka told the presidents of the oil companies at their meeting in Minsk on May 16, 2013.
Mr. Lukashenka told Rosneft President Igor Sechin and RussNeft President Mikhail Gutseriyev that Belarus was ready to discuss an increase in oil and gas deliveries by the companies. "If there are, say, normal terms that are better than those offered by other companies, we can take more oil for refining, if you so wish, of course," he said.
"As for deliveries of petroleum products, let's agree together, we have no obstacles here either. You know our oil refineries," the Belarusian leader added.
Mr. Lukashenka invited the companies to launch a joint project to manufacture nitrogen fertilizers. "You have up to 50 billion cubic meters of gas, you don’t export it but I think we could agree on that within the Union State," he said.
He stressed that he was ready to discuss the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin if needed.
"We are ready to open the doors so that you could enter Belarus very efficiently, and it is desirable that your work should be highly profitable and efficient," Mr. Lukashenka said. "I think you will manage to get Belarus interested as you have very large amounts of oil and gas, and there's big development ahead."
Mr. Sechin said that state-owned Rosneft supplied about half of the entire amount of crude oil refined in Belarus. "I fully confirm that the principles that we will stick to in our work with out strategic Belarusian partners are trust, mutual respect and consideration for mutual interests. We are ready to share benefits with our partners in full and create long-term projects," he said.
