BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

29/11/2006

Ukraine, Belarus, Azerbaijan suggest oil, gas consortium

KIEV, November 29 (Itar-Tass) - The presidents of Azerbaijan, Belarus and Ukraine have agreed to create a working group for analysing the problem of the transportation of Caspian energy carriers to the European market, says a report of the press service of the Ukrainian president on the results of their meeting in Minsk.

Viktor Yushchenko, Ilkham Aliyev and Alexander Lukashenko discussed at their tripartite meeting prospects for developing cooperation in the energy sphere, specifically, a search for ways of the transportation of Caspian energy carriers to the European market. They agreed to create a working group on the level of ministers of economy of the three countries. Yushchenko mentioned a possibility of the use of the Odessa-Brody pipeline by Belarussian oil refineries.

In the opinion of Ukraine, the report said, "it would be reasonable to consider a possibility of the creation of a consortium rallying in CIS the exporter countries, the transit countries and the importers of oil and gas." The transportation of energy carriers is one of the most promising directions of cooperation within the CIS framework in the setting of a free trade zone. "Active cooperation in that sphere will create conditions not only for the guaranteed supply of energy carriers to the CIS member countries, but also for the organisation of routes for the transportation of energy carriers, specifically, to EU," the report of the Ukrainian presidential press service stressed.

Source:

http://www.tass.ru/eng/level2.html?NewsID=11028959&PageNum=0

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