BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

09/01/2007

EC asks Russia, Belarus explanations over oil transit stoppage

BRUSSELS, January 8 (Itar-Tass) - The European Commission has asked Moscow and Minsk for explanations over the stoppage of the Russian oil transit to the West via the Belarussian territory, EC spokesman Ferran Tarradellas Espuny said on Monday. According to him, because of days off in connection with Orthodox Christmas holidays, the answers have not been received yet. The European Commission is closely watching the situation and continues to collect information.

According to the European Commission, Poland is currently not receiving Russian oil and Germany is experiencing disruptions. The EC official stressed at the same time that there is no short-term threat to energy security of these countries, because Poland's strategic oil stock will suffice for 70 days and Germany's - for 130 days of autonomous consumption.

Head of Russia's Transneft oil company Semyon Vainshtok said on Monday that the company is taking all measures necessary to increase oil supplies to Western Europe and thus compensate for unsanctioned siphoning of transit oil that the Belarussian side has unilaterally started.

"The Belarussian side on January 6 unilaterally without warning anybody about anything started illegal siphoning off of oil from the Druzhba pipeline that is meant exclusively for West European consumers," the official said. "Over the past day alone, despite measures taken by Transneft, 900 tonnes of oil from the pipeline were illegally siphoned off and a total of 79,000 tonnes have been illegally taken away since January 6," he stressed.

"The Belarussian side should return to the regime of observing international norms ad rules that excludes the application of discriminatory measures against the transit supplies," said Vainshtok adding that the "transit is a sacred cow."

"At present Belarus is impeding normal functioning of the pipeline, running across its territory and thus hampering transit supplies," Vainshtok stated. "Transneft is taking all necessary measures in order to increase the export supply volume along other routes for West European consumers," the official stressed. "In particular, the capacities of the Primorsky (Maritime) route have already been increased to the level of 76.5 million tonnes of oil a year," the Transneft head said.

Source:

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=11139343&PageNum=0