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Russia to supply 5.75 million tons of oil to Belarus in Q1 of 2013

Russia will supply 5.75 million tons of crude oil to Belarus in the first quarter of 2013, according to the Belarusian Council of Ministers’ press office.

An agreement to this effect was reached during talks held by Uladzimir Syamashka, Belarus’ first deputy prime minister, and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich in Moscow on December 27 and 28.

If Russia supplies the same amount of crude to Belarus in the other three quarters each, the latter will get a total of 23 million tons in 2013, the press office said.

Messrs. Syamashka and Dvorkovich agreed that Minsk and Moscow will hold more talks on the volume of crude deliveries to Belarus from April through December 2013.

Alyaksandr Lukashenka announced on December 21 that Russia had agreed to supply 23 million tons of crude oil to Belarus in 2013.

"We held talks with Russia and they offered 18.5 million tons while we wanted 23 million tons, but we and the Russians agreed on the supply of 23 million tons of oil," Mr. Lukashenka said.

Russia was expected to export a total of 21.5 million tons of oil to Belarus in 2012. In exchange, Belarus made a commitment to supply Russia with 5.8 million tons of high-quality petroleum products this year, including 2.1 million tons of gasoline, 3.5 million tons of diesel fuel and 0.2 million tons of aviation kerosene. However, it reportedly supplied only 144,300 tons of petroleum products to Russia in the first eight months of the year.