Oil negotiations have failed

Belarus will only get 18.5 million tons of Russian oil in 2013.

The information came from Russia’s vice-Prime Minister Arkadiy Dvorkovich as he met the deputy chairman of Belarus’ government Uladzimir Siamashka.

Participants of the negotiations discussed a number of issues of the bilateral cooperation. Regarding the agreement on oil shipments Arkadiy Dvorkovich confirmed that the Russian party intended to supply Belarus with 18.5 million tons of oil in 2013, and the balance of supplies for the IV quarter will be agreed based on that, Russian government’s press-service reports.

From the start of 2013 the schedule of the shipments of Russian oil was agreed by quarters. The Russian party links the decision of the issue over oil shipments to Belarus with the course of implementation of joint projects in the industrial field. The Belarusian party, in its turn, suggests that Russia signed the fuel and energy balance not only for the IV quarter of 2013 but the whole 2014 in September.

Altogether Minsk asks 23 million tons of oil from Moscow in 2013, however Russia refuses to provide such volumes.

During the meeting the parties also considered the course of implementation of joint projects on the development of integration of Russian and Belarusian industrial enterprises in the fields of radio electronics, space industry, machine building industry, chemical industry.

Representatives of the two countries touched upon the issue of mutual relations in the sphere of agriculture. Arkadiy Dvorkovich noted that Russia had complaints as to the quality and safety of a number of Belarusian goods. Apart from that repsective Russian agencies are studying the situation with re-exports of goods of third countries origin to Russia, marketed as Belarusian, the Russian vice-Prime Minister said.

Consultations on these issues and meetings of working interdepartmental groups from Russia and Belarus will continue next week. Arkadiy Dvorkovich especially noted that the cooperation on all the issues, discussed during the negotiations, will depend on how the situation develops in general.