BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

31/12/2008

Russia's Gazprom sees no gas row with Belarus

Reuters

Russia's gas export monopoly Gazprom, embroiled in a row with Ukraine about debts and gas supplies, said on Wednesday it will have no problems with Belarus on setting next year's price.

Belarus, like Ukraine, depends on Russian gas which Gazprom has so far sold to it at cheaper rates than European market prices.

Gazprom has threatened to cut Ukraine off on January 1 if the country's debts are not paid off and a new supply deal is not signed.

Europe is eying the row nervously -- it gets a quarter of its gas from Russia -- 80 percent of that flows via Ukraine and the rest through Belarus. A supply cut to Ukraine in 2006 affected European consumers.

"We don't see any problems," Alexander Medvedev, the head of Gazprom's export arm, told a news briefing referring to negotiations with Belarus. He did not name a new price but said a supply contract could still be concluded next year.

Belarus now pays $128 (88 pounds) per 1,000 cubic metres and Russian media had reported that the price could rise to $240 per tcm. But Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko said he expected prices to fall by the end of next year.

"If nothing has changed recently in our talks with Moscow, there is a possibility of having approximately the same price as this year," Lukashenko was quoted by state news agency BELTA as saying.

"Oil prices have fallen by a factor of three or four. In the first quarter of 2009 the price of gas will be high, but we will pay up diligently. By the end of 2009, prices will fall to a third," he was cited as saying.

Minsk and Moscow rowed over gas prices in 2007, solving the dispute only in the final hours of the year.

(Editing by Anthony Barker)

Source:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20081231/tpl-uk-belarus-russia-gas-sb-02bfc7e.html

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