MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russia’s oil pipeline monopoly Transneft has started supplying crude oil to Belarusian refineries, reproted Reuters with reference to news agency Interfax, citing the company's statement.
Major Russian oil companies suspended supplies to Belarus from Jan. 1 after failing to agree supply terms, with Moscow wanting to end years of discounted oil supplies to Minsk.
Russia used to supply about 1.5 million tonnes of oil (360,000 bpd) to Belarus each month, but flows have dwindled to a trickle since the start of the year.
Transneft did not disclose the volumes it plans to ship to Belarus this month.
In late January 2020, as MRC wrote before, Belarusian Naftan refinery received 80,000 mt of Norwegian oil to test out new routes and compare losses with the current price of Russian oil.
Lukashenko said in mid-December 2019 that Russia had agreed in principle to supply 20-22 Bcm of gas and 24 million-25 million mt of oil in 2020 to Belarus.
According to ICIS-MRC Price report, lower capacity utilisation at Polymir (part of Naftan) in January 2020 did not affect the balance of the local low density polyethylene (LDPE) market, there was no shortage of polyethylene (PE). Local companies partially compensated for the absence of domestic PE by higher shipments from Russia.
Polymir (part of Naftan) is Belarus' largest petrochemical company, producing a wide range of chemical products, such as LDPE, acrylic fibers, products of organic synthesis, hydrocarbon fractions, etc. Polymir was founded in 1968. The producer uses technologies of the largest foreign companies from Great Britain, Japan, Germany, Italy (Courtaulds, Asahi Chemical Co. Ltd, Kanematsu Gosho, SNIA BPD, etc.), as well as the developments of scientific research institutes and design institutes of the CIS countries. The plant"s annual production capacity is 130,000 tonnes.
MRC