Russia-Belarus oil row hits supplies to Germany, Poland

Russian oil exports to Germany and Poland through Belarus were interrupted on Monday in a dispute spotlighting western Europe�s vulnerability to tension between Russia and its ex-Soviet neighbours. Russia blamed Belarus, alleging that the republic was diverting oil pumped through the Druzhba pipeline to Germany and Poland. But authorities in the ex-Soviet republic said that oil was being taken as a form of transit fee imposed on January 1, although such payment had been rejected by Moscow. And the chief engineer at Belarus state-owned company Gomeltransneft Druzhba, which operates the pipeline, told AFP earlier: �We did not cut it off. We are working. But there has been a reduction.� The dispute between the two neighbours and the fallout further down the export line highlighted the European Union�s dependence on Russia�s vast energy supplies and vulnerability to instability on Russia�s borders. However, the European Commission in Brussels said that there was no immediate threat to oil supplies within the European Union because inventories were high. The oil row follows a New Year�s dispute over a more than doubling of Russian gas prices for Belarus, which was resolved only hours before Moscow was set to cut supplies to the country of 10 million people. The latest dispute began when Russia imposed new export taxes on oil sold to Belarus where the heavily state-managed economy relies largely on a refining industry based on Russian-subsidised energy imports. Belarus retaliated against the January 1 tariff by imposing its own transit fee on Russian oil passing through Belarus to reach clients in western Europe. Russia�s deputy economic development minister, Andrei Sharonov, said that Belarus was �starting to take oil because Russia is not paying the illegally introduced tariff�, Echo of Moscow radio reported. He warned: �One must not forget that Russia is Belarus� main market and number one economic partner. Because of this, we have the possibility to take adequate measures... and obtain a cancellation of the tariff.� However, Belarus insisted that it was acting legitimately and was not at fault for the energy shortfalls in western Europe. �Belarus was not at fault for the drop in pressure in the Druzhba pipeline,� foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Popov said. Popov explained that the transit tariff gave Belarus the right to �introduce customs procedure� for oil in its territory. Negotiations on the oil fees crisis were scheduled to take place in Moscow on Tuesday, but Sharonov said this was now under question. A decision was likely to be made later Monday, he said. About 100 million tonnes of Russian crude pass through pipelines in Belarus each year on the way west to customers in the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Slovakia, as well as Germany and Poland. Druzhba means �friendship� in Russian, and the Druzhba pipeline supplies 18 million tonnes of oil to Poland each year and 22 million tonnes to the Schwedt and MIDER refineries in Germany. Source:http:thenews.com.pk