The official representative of Gazprom, Sergei Kupriyanov, on June 21 acknowledged the debt for gas transit through Belarus, which, in his words, was comparable in size to Minsk's arrears for gas supplies in 2010 (192 million dollars). However, the spokesman for gas holding stated that it was Belarus' fault that they could not sink the debt.
«The debt exists, the situation is created by the fact that the Belarusian side does not allow to repay it because of not drawing up transit acts», RIA Novosti quotes Sergei Kupriyanov.
As Telegraf previously reported, Belarus’ debt to Gazprom has been accumulated due to the fact that Beltransgaz paid for «blue fuel» supplies in 2010 at last year’s price of 150 dollars per thousand cubic meters.
According to the Russian side, already in the first quarter of this year gas price for Belarus has risen to 169 dollars, and for the year in average it’s projected at about 187 dollars. As a result, at Russian gas monopoly think that, maintaining gas price at the level of 2009, to the end of 2010 Belarus’ debt will amount to abound 500-600 million dollars.
