Reports: Belarus poised to increase price for Russian crude transit

Belarus plans to increase the price for the transit of Russian crude oil by 20.5% effective from January 1, 2016, reports TASS quoting an unnamed source at one of oil refineries in Belarus. The source alleged that Gomeltransneft Druzhba and Polacktransneft Druzhba had already sent notices to the Russian oil transit company Transneft.

Transeft confirmed it received such a proposal from their Belarusian partners and is now studing it. However, Transneft says the price increase would be justified. Belarus sought to raise the tariffs for the Russian crude oil transit by approximately 50% from October 11, 2016. However, the measure was called off after Russia pledged to restire crude oil supplies back to the previous volume. In the same development, Belarus promised to pay about $300 million of arrears for the supplied Russian gas. It remains unknown whether the payment has actually been made.