Belarus ships crude oil from Azerbaijan
Belarus has once again made a shipment of crude oil from Azerbaijan. A tanker with Azeri oil for the Mazyr refinery in Belarus arrived several days ago to the Black Sea port of Odessa in Ukraine, reports BelaPAN.
The tanker brought 84.7 thousand tonnes of crude oil. It will be transported in railway tanks to Mazyr. The press office of Belarusian petrochemical giant Belneftekhim told BelaPAN that "technical capacity [of the Belarusian refinery] allows processing various types of oil." The company also stressed that our country "works on various options to supply crude oil to the refineries due to insufficient supplies of Russian crude."
In the third quarter of 2016, Russia drastically cut crude oil supplies to Belarus - the decision heavily influenced by bilateral disputes over the price of Russian natural gas. Russia delivered 5.8 million tonnes of crude in the first quarter, 5.7 million tonnes in the second and only 3.5 million tonnes in the third. The disrupted supply was behind the lower output of petrochimical products by Belarusian refineries.
In early October, Aliaksandr Lukashenka said Belarus was in talks about crude oil supplies with Iran. Shortly after, Belarus and Russia settled the gas price conflict. Belarus is expected to receive 5 million tonnes of Russian crude in the fourth quarter of 2016.
