Belarusian Prime Minister Sergey Sidorsky (left) and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
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Belarus Discusses Gas Capitulation
// Friendship of the Nations
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and Belarusian Prime Minister Sergey Sidorsky held two-hour negotiations yesterday on ways to lower the price of natural gas deliveries to Belarus next year. Two ways were suggested to avoid paying a price of $200 per 1000 cu. m., namely, transferring a number of Belarusian oil and gas assets to Gazprom or allowing the company to share in the profitable Belarusian domestic market. Those options will be discussed further in September.
The Council of Ministers of the Union State of Russia and Belarus met yesterday in the administration headquarters in Moscow. The prime ministers were able to settle 18 questions on the agenda within 20 minutes before reaching the topic of natural gas. That discussion took place behind closed doors, with the prime ministers several other members of the council present, as well as Gazprom head Alexey Miller, who delivered a report on his own negotiations on gas prices for Belarus.
Sidorsky was able to elicit few concessions from Fradkov. Fradkov, the first member of the government to discuss the issue with a Belarusian official, reiterated Miller's earlier position that Russia was converting to a single price for all of its customers. Thus, the main result of yesterday's negotiations was Sidorsky's agreement to discuss Moscow's price. Miller read off a list of Belarusian properties of interest to Gazprom. Prominent among those were the Beltransgaz trunk pipeline, the Beltopgaz distribution network and the Mozyr oil refinery. Sidorsky claims to have refused those proposals.
In addition, Kommersant has learned, Belarus was offered “variations of joint use of property that can lead to the lowering of the final price for gas.” That seems to involve the domestic distribution network. The prime minister declared that talks had not reached a dead end and agreed to set up a working group to continue their efforts. The next meeting of the Council of Ministers will be in Minsk in September.
Petr Netreba
All the Article in Russian as of June 29, 2006
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