BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

18/11/2010

Belarus to get Venezuela oil via exchange with Glencore

Operators reported that Glencore could deliver the Ural crude oil from Novorossiisk on the Black Sea to be unloaded at Yuzhny port in Ukraine and carried through a pipeline to Belarus in exchange for Venezuela's Santa Barbara crude oil

Economy

Belarus and Venezuela could start an oil exchange agreement with Glencore, the largest intermediary of raw materials in the world, three sources told Reuters on Thursday.

Belarus can buy all its oil straight from Russia, but opted to import Venezuela's Santa Barbara beginning this year amidst strained relations with the Kremlin.

However, the operations, involving taking the Venezuelan oil on the Atlantic to the Black Sea or the Baltic Sea to unload it and carry it through a pipeline to Belarus, turned out to be expensive.

This time, operators reported that Glencore could deliver the Ural crude oil from Novorossiisk on the Black Sea to be unloaded at Yuzhny port in Ukraine and carried through a pipeline to Belarus in exchange for Venezuela's Santa Barbara crude oil.

Glencore, among the three largest world intermediaries and an important buyer of shipments of Ural crude oil from Novorossiisk, accepted the exchange agreement with state-run oil holding Petroleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa), operators said.

Source:

http://english.eluniversal.com/2010/11/18/en_eco_esp_belarus-to-get-venez_18A4747813.shtml