National News

Belarusian oil refiners to operate in the black in May

He noted, the effectiveness of oil refining depends on a lot of factors, first of all, prices for oil and exported oil products (Belarus exports around 70% of oil products).

Yet the oil refining level plunged after the Russian Federation introduced a customs duty on crude oil exported to Belarus on January 1, 2007 and Belarus introduced customs duties on exported oil products as high as Russian ones. Mikhail Osipenko said, measures had been taken to alleviate the impact of the price surge on refiners.

In view of the loss-making performers of Belarusian oil refineries in April 2007 due to higher prices for hydrocarbon raw stock, Belneftekhim opted for a 5% increase in domestic prices for oil products, said the official. According to Mikhail Osipenko, the move has allowed earning an extra $5-7 per tonne of processed oil, securing breakeven performance in May 2007.

Mikhail Osipenko also said the Belarusian government had approved a per-month schedule of oil supplies to and oil processing by Belarusian oil refiners. The schedule provides for replenishing the oil volumes undersupplied in Q1 2007 by oil supplies in Q2-Q4 2007.

Several measures taken to improve oil refining terms will allow increasing subcontracted oil refining done by Belarusian companies as from June 2007, said the source.

Let us remind you that according to this year’s energy budget Belarus plans to import 21.5 million tonnes of oil.