Belarus, Russia to sign three-year gas supply contract in early December

Belarus and Russia are set to sign a three-year gas supply contract in early December, BelTA learned from Belarus’ Deputy Energy Minister Mikhail Mikhadyuk.

"We have reached an agreement in principle with the Russian side that the contract will be signed within a short period of time. It is planned that this will happen in the first 10 days of December,” said the deputy minister. Asked about the anticipated gas volumes and price for Belarus, Mikhail Mikhadyuk noted that the supplier has no objections as to the numbers.

As was previously announced by Belarus’ First Vice Premier Vladimir Semashko, the current three-year contract for the supply of natural gas by Gazprom to Belarus expires on 31 December of the current year. He explained that the gas price for Belarus next year may be lower than the prices this year. Currently, Belarus pays $168 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas.

According to the reports announced early this year, in 2014 Belarus was set to import about 20.465 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia. According to First Deputy Energy Minister Leonid Shenets, this amount of gas will be enough to meet the needs of all categories of consumers in Belarus.

In 2013, Belarus imported about 19.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas. The country plans to continue its strategy of reducing the dependence on natural gas through a set of measures to improve the energy efficiency in the power engineering industry and other economic sectors, to increase the use of renewable energy and the share of local fuels in the country’s energy consumption mix.