“Where to get a billion”

Alexander Lukashenko wants to compensate for rising gas prices at Moscow's expense

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko seems to have found a tactic for negotiating the price of Russian gas supplied to his republic. A week ago, immediately after a meeting in the Kremlin with Vladimir Putin , he claimed that he had not heard about Gazprom’s intention to increase the price to $200 per thousand cubic meters, and expressed confidence that the economic entities (Gazprom and Beltransgaz) would agree. Last Friday, at a meeting with the workers of Bobruisk, the Belarusian leader called on his government to compensate for future losses at the expense of Russia. “Where will Belarus get one billion dollars from if Russia significantly increases the price for Russian gas? - Mr. Lukashenko was indignant. - We will not be able to shift this onto the shoulders of the population and enterprises. We must introduce compensation schemes and offer Russia to compensate for these losses. If, for example, it was free for Russia, now you have to pay.”

Apparently, the Belarusian president already knew that Beltransgaz CEO Dmitry Kazakov, who on Friday was at a reception with Gazprom head Alexei Miller, again heard the Russian position on the European approach to pricing. “Our goal in the negotiations is to switch to market prices for gas supplies to Belarus,” Mr. Miller was quoted as saying in the press service. In addition, the heads of “economic entities”, who will have to agree on how much Minsk will pay for gas, talked about the progress of an independent assessment of the market value of objects in the gas transportation system of Belarus. A source in the Belarusian Ministry of Energy told Interfax that the appraiser ABN Amro will most likely present the results of the assessment of the 50% of Beltransgaz shares claimed by the Russian concern in early December. That is, it is unlikely that it will be possible to agree on the terms of the deal before the end of the year, and therefore provide additional income to the Belarusian budget as a result of the deal to mitigate the rise in gas prices.

Therefore, Mr. Lukashenko wants to find the conditional “billion” by increasing collections from the Russian government and companies. The President mentioned that up to 100 million tons of transit cargo moves through Belarusian territory to and from Russia every year. He did not forget about the Russian military bases located in Belarus. “Belarus is Russia’s outpost in the West. We do not refuse to defend Russia in this area. And this is worth a lot. Russian military facilities are located on the territory of Belarus also free of charge,” Mr. Lukashenko said. By the way, similar statements by Kyiv during the gas auction did not translate into real actions, and a serious revision of tariffs did not take place.

Alexander Lukashenko strengthened his threats to increase the price for anything Russian by calling for the currently fashionable diversification of energy supplies. “Russians have always been family and friends, but no matter how close they are, we cannot be dependent on one country for energy resources,” noted the President of Belarus. And then he suggested following the example of America, which is ideologically alien to him: “Either extract it (oil. - Ed. ) in another country and sell it on world markets, or, as the Americans do, deliver it to ports by tankers, and then by rail or pipeline transport it to Belarus.”

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The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) will check the activities of Ukrgas-Energo for the monopoly position of the enterprise at the request of the country's National Security and Defense Council, said Vitaliy Haiduk, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council. “Taking into account that today Ukrgas-Energo already has 55 billion cubic meters of gas, we have a corresponding gas monopolist on the market, and this activity is subject to consideration of the situation by the Antimonopoly Committee - is this enterprise using its monopoly position from the point of view of its relations with relevant economic entities,” he said last Friday in Kyiv. “We turned to the Antimonopoly Committee because we have information that Ukrgas-Energo did not provide limits to many enterprises.” Mr. Gaiduk noted that, according to some information, the AMCU sent a corresponding request to Ukrgas-Energo in order to receive certain materials to consider this issue. “We are keeping it under control, ” said the secretary. According to him, the National Security and Defense Council cares about the energy independence of Ukraine, which is also a matter of national security. “Therefore, in our actions and in the materials that we prepare, we will invite the council to directly consider this issue. This issue is related to the level of energy independence,” the official promised. Ukrgaz-Energo, a joint venture between Naftogaz of Ukraine and the Swiss gas trader RosUkrEnergo, has been the sole importer of natural gas to Ukraine since April 2006. The joint venture sells natural gas purchased from RosUkrEnergo to industrial consumers in Ukraine. As reported, Ukrgas-Energo refused to supply gas to 16 large industrial enterprises in Ukraine from November 1. The CJSC motivated its actions by the fact that gas traders close to these industrial enterprises have their own natural gas resources. Some of the enterprises that were denied gas supplies went to court with a demand to force Ukrgas-Energo to properly fulfill the contracts for the supply of natural gas concluded in the spring of this year. Interfax

Alexey GRIVACHS