The authorities of Russia and Belarus have agreed on a new price for the transit of Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline through Belarusian territory, Interfax reports, citing a source.
According to him, the oil transit tariff will be increased by 6.7 percent from February 1. Earlier Minsk offered to raise the price by 24.5 percent.
According to the current rules, in the absence of agreements between the parties, the price increases by the forecast inflation rate in Russia (in 2021 it will be 3.7 percent) plus three percentage points.
The main argument of Belarus for a more significant increase in the tariff was the fact that in 2020 the state-owned operator of the oil pipeline Gomeltransneft Druzhba did not receive income from the transit of Russian oil in the amount of 3.5 billion rubles. This happened due to the fact that Russia was forced to comply with the terms of the OPEC + agreement on production cuts.
In addition, Belarus is building a bridge between the two Druzhba branches and hoped to compensate for the costs by increasing the tariff.