Russia is ready to issue compensation to Belarusian refineries for delivering contaminated oil through the Druzhba pipeline last year, Russian Ambassador to Minsk Dmitry Mezentsev said on Thursday
MINSK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd January, 2020) Russia is ready to issue compensation to Belarusian refineries for delivering contaminated oil through the Druzhba pipeline last year, Russian Ambassador to Minsk Dmitry Mezentsev said on Thursday.
The Druzhba pipeline is used to export oil from Russia to Europe via Belarus. Last April, it was discovered that the oil was contaminated with chlorides, which resulted in the temporary suspension of transit. However, Belarus said it had received millions of tonnes of contaminated oil before imports were halted, and that the situation caused damage to its refineries. Oil transit was fully restored on July 1.
"In accordance with the request and documented losses incurred by Belarusian refineries in connection with the low-quality oil deliveries in 2019, the Russian side is ready to compensate for the damage. In this case, such a position indicates our commitment to our allied relations," Mezentsev said in a statement.
The ambassador added that optimal solutions to problems related to the supply of oil and gas to Belarus would be found in the near future.
On Monday, the press service of the Belarusian government told Sputnik that Minsk and Moscow had reached an agreement on the approaches and methods of compensation to be used with regard to the tainted oil. The announcement came after the talks between then-Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak and Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Lyashenko on issues of cooperation in the oil sector, which were held on January 16.
