Gas Price for Belarus Will Not Exceed $128 for 1000 Cubic Meters This Year, Russian Ambassador Says

The price of Russian gas for Belarus will not exceed $128 for 1000 cubic meters before the end of 2008, Russian Ambassador Aleksandr Surikov told reporters in Minsk on Wednesday.

The diplomat said that the price would increase by no more than seven percent compared with the beginning of the year when it was $119 for 1000 cubic meters.

When asked to comment on recent remarks by Vasil Khrol, deputy state secretary of the Belarusian-Russian Union State, who said that the gas price for Belarus may be raised to $200 for 1000 cubic meters next year, Mr. Surikov said that the price would amount to 80 percent of “the Warsaw direction price” minus customs duties and some other fees.

The ambassador said that he did not know what “the Warsaw direction price” would be in 2008.

Under a five-year contract, signed between Gazprom and Beltranshaz on December 31, 2006, the price for Belarus was raised to $100 for 1000 cubic meters in 2007 compared with $46.68 in the previous two and a half years. The price is to gradually increase to the European market level by 2011. It is to be 67 percent of the level in 2008, 80 percent in 2009, 90 percent in 2010, and 100 percent in 2011.

The Belarusian government is currently pushing for a review of the price formula set out in the contract as it insists on a lower price. //BelaPAN