Translated material
New source of petroleum products
Belarus wants to provide Europe with fuel
Minsk intends to make the project for the supply of oil from Venezuela significant for Europe. The events of recent days show that Belarus is seeking to attract an increasing number of partners to its implementation. Today Ukraine and the Baltic countries are involved in the project. Minsk wants to interest other European countries in it, without hiding the fact that it is trying to create competition for Russian oil on the European market.Recently, a Belarusian-Ukrainian intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the field of transit was signed. The document provides for the transportation of oil from the Ukrainian Odessa to Belarus using rail and pipeline transport. In the first year of the contract, 4 million tons of oil are expected to be supplied through Ukraine; subsequently, the annual transportation volume will be increased to 10 million tons. Minsk intends to purchase precisely these volumes of raw materials from Caracas. Oil from Venezuela for Belarus will be delivered by tankers first to Odessa.
At the same time, the Belarusian side began searching for additional transit opportunities. If until now all Venezuelan oil went through Odessa to the Mozyr oil refinery, now Minsk has decided to organize a trial delivery through Estonia. One of the tankers with oil from Venezuela should arrive in the second half of July at the port of Muuga. From there, the raw materials will be delivered by rail to the Naftan oil refinery located in the city of Novopolotsk. The issue of tariffs for oil delivery via this route is still under discussion. Minsk is also considering the possibility of receiving raw materials through the ports of Lithuania and Latvia.
At the same time, the issue of selling the final product is being resolved. On Monday, the registration process of the Belarusian-Venezuelan joint venture Petroil VB.S.A was completed. It will be engaged in the sale of petroleum products. 75% of it belongs to Caracas, 25% to Minsk. According to the terms of the contract, all petroleum products obtained from Venezuelan oil will be sold for export.
Minsk expects that in the future it will be able to supply European countries with these petroleum products, creating competition for Russian oil. “The Russians are very offended that Venezuelan oil has come to Europe. It will go, it will be all over Europe, Venezuelan oil,” President Alexander Lukashenko promised in an interview with the Euronews TV channel.
The implementation of the oil supply project from Venezuela began in the spring of this year. Independent experts find it difficult to assess its prospects, since the price of Venezuelan oil is unknown. Assuming that Belarus pays the market price, then the need for long-distance transportation should make raw materials prohibitively expensive. “It’s difficult to evaluate a deal when you don’t know such an important parameter as price. We can only assume that Minsk considers the project profitable, because it intends to purchase significant volumes of oil,” Irina Tochitskaya, deputy head of the Belarusian research center Institute of Privatization and Management, told Vremya Novostey.
Not long ago, Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Semashko told reporters that refining Venezuelan oil at Belarusian factories is profitable, but working with Russian oil has become unprofitable after the introduction of a 100% duty on its supplies since the beginning of the year. Many experts suggest that Hugo Chavez provided Belarus with a significant discount, which means that the fate of the contract will depend on the goodwill of the Venezuelan leader.