The Russian oil company Transneft redirected oil deliveries, earmarked for Belarus, to alternative buyers via seaports on January 21. According to the spokesman for the Russian oil pipeline operator Igor Diomin, this decision was made after the pricing dispute failure between the Prime Ministers of Belarus and Russia in 2011.
«We have redirected our flows to Gdansk, Primorsk and Novorossiisk in January. The volumes are large enough, about 1.5 million tons per month,» Transneft representative told Reuters.
He also added that as a result of the oil standoff between Belarus and Russia, the company had to hold more crude resources in domestic storage, but now it’s time to release them. «We have now large volumes of oil in storage, but since the parties haven’t agreed, we are going to send that oil on,» Igor Diomin said.
As Telegraf previously reported, Russia cut off oil supplies to Belarus on January 1, 2011 due to the stalemate in oil pricing issue. Talks on energy sector were held between the Prime Ministers of Belarus and Russia, Mikhail Miasnikovich and Vladimir Putin, in Moscow on January 20, but they resulted in nothing.
