BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

08/01/2007

Russian Reports say Moscow Blocked Oil Pipeline to Counter Belarusian Siphoning

By VOA News

Russian news reports say Moscow has stopped pumping oil exports through a pipeline that supplies Belarus and Europe, because the Minsk government has been siphoning oil meant for European customers.

The reports say Belarus has illegally siphoned 79,000 tons of oil meant for Western Europe since Saturday. The pipeline flow to Germany and Poland ceased overnight.

Belarus has not officially commented on the siphoning allegations. A few days ago the Minsk government slapped a $45 customs duty on each ton of Russian crude oil crossing Belarus on its way to Europe.

Belarus said the transit tax was a response to a Russian export duty Moscow recently imposed on oil deliveries to Belarus.

In Moscow Monday, Russian pipeline official Sergei Grigoryev told the Reuters news agency that Belarus began siphoning oil as a way of securing payment of the transit tax, which Moscow earlier rejected as illegal.

Earlier Monday, the European Commission asked Russia and Belarus for "an urgent and detailed explanation" for the stoppage.

EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said the oil cut-off in Russia's Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline posed no immediate threat to oil supplies to the 27-nation European Union.

Almost exactly a year ago Moscow briefly cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine in a pricing dispute, disrupting deliveries to western Europe.

Source:

http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-01-08-voa28.cfm