Belarus to pay different price for Russian natural gas as from February

The price that Belarus will pay for Russian natural gas in January 2015 will be equal to the price in 2014 but the price will be different as from February 2015, BelTA learned from representatives of OAO Gazprom Transgaz Belarus.

“As from 1 January Belarus will pay to Gazprom in accordance with the year 2014 prices. We expect that the price for natural gas will be different as from February,” said the source. The source did not specify the new price citing information confidentiality reasons.

At present Belarus pays about $168 per 1,000m3 of natural gas. Earlier BelTA quoted the first vice premier of Belarus as saying that in 2015 the natural gas price may be as low as $154-155.

Asked about how much natural gas Belarus will get in 2015, representatives of OAO Gazprom Transgaz Belarus said the Russian company will supply about 20 billion m3 or roughly as much as it did in 2014. In accordance with the contract in 2015 Russian natural gas transit via Belarus will be approximately 45 billion m3. “The figures the contract stipulates cannot be corrected,” noted the source.

In mid-December 2014 OAO Gazprom Transgaz Belarus mentioned the signing of a three-year contract for the delivery of Russian natural gas to Belarus. The effective three-year contract will expire on 31 December 2014.

In April 2013 OAO Beltransgaz was officially renamed into the public joint-stock company Gazprom Transgaz Belarus, with Russian OAO Gazprom owning all the shares as of 25 November 2011. The company's gas transportation system in Belarus includes 7,870km of trunk pipelines and gas pipeline branches. The trunk pipelines, which are located in Belarus, are used to deliver Russian natural gas to Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast, to Lithuania, Ukraine, and Poland.