Belarus last year sharply increased fuel supplies to Russia. The import of light petroleum distillates into the country (this category mainly includes gasoline) increased 10 times compared to 2019.
In general, the Russian Federation last year purchased light distillates and products (primarily gasoline) worth $ 100 million under the customs code 271012 – twice as much as in 2019. More than half of imports come from Belarus – $ 55 million.
As the Ministry of Energy told Izvestia in 2020, a price situation developed on the Russian wholesale market, in which domestic refineries paid a damper to the budget when delivering to the domestic market, compensating for the restraint of retail prices in previous periods. At the same time, fuel supplies from Belarus were not taxed by the “damper”. This allowed the republic’s refineries to increase the export of motor fuel to the Russian Federation. In the conditions of 2021, the “damper”, on the contrary, restrains wholesale prices on the Russian domestic market and makes the export of Belarusian fuel to Russia economically unattractive.
The volume of production of motor gasoline in March 2021 is expected to be 2.6% higher than the level of the same period in 2019, and the volume of shipments to the domestic market is expected to be 8% higher than the level of the same period in 2019, the Ministry of Energy added. In addition, the stocks of motor gasoline in March reached 1.66 million tons and continue to grow.
The Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs must, by April 15, work out the issue of gasoline supplies from Belarus. This was reported by Kommersant with reference to the minutes of the meeting of Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak with the management of oil companies on March 30.
Read more in the exclusive material from Izvestia:
Belarusian maneuver: Minsk increased fuel export to Russia by 10 times