Venezuelan oil deliveries to Belarus to be cut off

• 11.08.2010, 13:07

Lithuania won’t sacrifice Poland’s energy interests for providing supplies to Belarus.

Alexander Pasechnik, the head of the Analytical Directorate of the National Energy Security Foundation, told this to a Regnum correspondent on August 10.

We remind that Warsaw Business Journal said on August 10 that Vilnius may reduce or even cut off oil from the Klaipeda oil terminal to Mažeikiai refinery, owned by Poland's PNK Orlen, because the terminal will focus on shipping Venezuelan oil to Belarus.

Thus, the Lithuanian enterprise will fail to fulfill its obligations to the Polish party. “Belarus again launches a sabotage campaign,” Pasechnik noted. “These logistics woes and cooperation with the Baltic states, in particular with Lithuania, are the echo of lifting preferences from oil deliveries to Belarusian refineries by Russia. But even 6.3 million tons of duty-free oil supplied by Moscow to Minsk are a significant bonus. In this respect, to is unclear why Belarus doesn’t want to work on normal commercial terms,” the expert said.

“The situation obviously has a political background. Alyaksandr Lukashenka started an alternative scenario of Venezuela,” the analyst thinks.

In his opinion, Venezuelan oil supplies to Belarus are not strategic. “These projects will be closed sooner or later. The Lithuanian authorities are not likely to invest large sums in such doubtful initiatives. Increasing ports capacities requires hundreds of millions of dollars. This will hardly be done for Belarus. So, Poland doesn’t face global energy threats here,” Pasechnik thinks.