Russia to increase oil supplies after Belarus settles gas debt - Dvorkovich
Russian Vice Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich has revealed a condition for duty-free supplies of Russian oil to Belarus to resume. Crude oil supplies will be restored to the previous levels of 24 million tons a year beginning from April 13 only if Minsk settles the arrears for alredy supplied gas in 2016-2017, RIA Novosti reports.
On April 3, Aliaksandr Lukashenka and Vladimir Putin said aftet a meeting in St Petersburg that all issues between the countries in the energy sector were resolved. On the next day, Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Uladzimir Syamashka said that Belarus would receive 24 million tons of oil annually through 2014 and that supplies would be resumed not later than April 13. Belarus's arrears for gas supplied has amounted to $726 million after Minsk called the price for gas unfair and unilaterally began to pay at the price it saw correct. Negotiations lasted throughout the year of 2016 but yielded no result, while Moscow insisted on the old fixed price and began calculating the arrears.
