BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

10/01/2007

Russia Says Belarus Must Return Oil Before Supplies Resume

MosNews

Russia wants Belarus to give back some 80,000 tonnes of oil, which it claims was taken by Minsk during a trade dispute, before restarting oil flows via a major pipeline to Europe, the Reuters news agency quoted a Russian a government official as saying on Wednesday.

Deputy Economy Minister Andrei Sharonov said Russia was ready to re-launch full operations of the Druzhba pipeline within four hours of receiving the oil. A restart of the pipeline would lift the threat of a cut to Russian oil output.

"If oil pumping restarts within hours the issue of (Russian) oil production cuts will be off the agenda," he told reporters.

Source:

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2007/01/10/returntheoil.shtml