MINSK, 17 March (BelTA) – The second tanker bearing oil bought from traders for the Belarusian oil refinery OAO Naftan arrived in the Klaipeda port today, BelTA learned from Aleksandr Tishchenko, Press Secretary of the Belarusian state petrochemical concern Belneftekhim.
The official said: “A tanker carrying 80,000 tonnes of oil reached the Klaipeda port and was slotted for discharging. Oil discharging will begin today. Oil transportation to Naftan by rail will begin tomorrow.”
According to the source, Naftan will get this oil in a couple of days. Aleksandr Tishchenko also confirmed that two more tankers with oil for Belarus are expected to arrive in Klaipeda this month.
BelTA reported earlier that the Azerbaijani company SOCAR will ship about 250,000 tonnes of oil to Belarus in March. Two out of three tankers have already delivered crude oil to Odessa. Belneftekhim Chairman Andrei Rybakov was quoted as saying that SOCAR may ship up to 1 million tonnes of oil to Belarus in 2020.
Belarusian oil refineries are expected to get a total of about 1 million tonnes of oil from various sources in March. In January and February the oil refineries operated at 50% of their capacity and processed about 1.8 million tonnes of oil.
Major Russian oil companies stopped shipping oil to Belarus on 1 January due to the absence of an agreement on prices. First Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Dmitry Krutoi was quoted as saying that Belarus believes it is economically inadvisable and pointless to pay the same amounts of premiums to Russian companies. On 11 March Prime Minister of Belarus Sergei Rumas said that Belarus had presented new oil acquisition proposals to Russia.
