Business news

MINSK, 24 February (BelTA) – Belarus and Russia are close to an agreement on terms of delivering natural gas, BelTA learned from Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Vladimir Semashko during the session of the Energy Ministry board on 24 February.

The Deputy Prime Minister said: “We must resolve the issue. We must secure a substantial decrease in the price for natural gas. We’ve been working on it for nearly a year and a half and I hope we are close to resolution.”

“We’ve come up with a trajectory for moving towards a common electricity market and a common market of natural gas and oil. The trajectory for reducing the price is available. We are likely to fix on domestic Russian prices. At least this is what the latest agreed version of our roadmap or the protocol says,” added the Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus.

The facts allow one to expect that by 1 July 2019 the price for the natural gas Belarus receives at the Belarusian-Russian border will be comparable to the price for natural gas inside Russia and that as from 1 January 2025 the price for the natural gas Belarus imports will be equal to the price for natural gas in Russia’s Smolensk Oblast.