MINSK, 16 March (BelTA) – Belarus is doing everything to buy oil at an advantage considering massive fluctuations of the global prices for oil, BelTA learned from Aleksandr Tishchenko, Press Secretary of the Belarusian state petrochemical concern Belneftekhim.
The official said: “We are doing everything to seize the moment and get lucrative raw materials. We stay on the top of the market, we study it, and work with all the possible suppliers.”
“The market is changing dynamically now. The number of offers is rising, prices are falling. We have to work with everyone. We keep watching because no major deals at new prices have been made yet,” he added.
According to the source, the coronavirus situation is having an effect on the volume of oil consumption. “Many processes all over the world have been suspended, the volume of consumption of oil and oil products is falling. It is reflected by the price policy,” Aleksandr Tishchenko pointed out.
Meanwhile, Belarus keeps getting alternative oil. “We expect another tanker to arrive in Klaipeda,” Aleksandr Tishchenko said. He specified that the tanker will bring 80,000 tonnes of oil bought from traders.
As for Azerbaijani oil, the batch delivered by the first tanker to the Odessa port will reach Mozyr Oil Refinery today or tomorrow. “The second tanker cast anchor in the Yuzhny port [of Odessa] yesterday. It is being prepared for discharging,” the Belneftekhim press secretary said. The third tanker with Azerbaijani oil for Belarus will arrive in late March.
BelTA reported earlier that the Azerbaijani company SOCAR will ship about 250,000 tonnes of oil to Belarus in March. The first tanker with oil for Mozyr Oil Refinery arrived in Odessa on 12 March. Belneftekhim Chairman Andrei Rybakov was quoted as saying that SOCAR may ship up to 1 million tonnes of oil to Belarus in 2020.
Apart from that, four tankers with oil for Belarus are expected to arrive in the Klaipeda port in March. The first one reached the Lithuanian port on 4 March.
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.
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.
