After raising taxes and with the help of administrative pressure, Belarus may seize the operator of the oil product pipeline “Transneft” on the territory of the republic “West-Transnefteproduct”. This was stated by the vice-president of the pipeline monopoly Maxim Grishanin, writes Kommersant.
In his opinion, Minsk was going to first initiate the bankruptcy of the operator, and then nationalize it. The country’s leadership needs the pipe to pump oil from Europe to their refineries.
Currently, Russian and Belarusian diesel fuel goes to Hungary and Latvia along this route. However, the increased tax burden is such that the pipeline becomes unprofitable.
Since January last year, in addition to the environmental tax of 0.35 Belarusian rubles per ton of oil products per 100 kilometers, Minsk has increased the profit tax from 18 percent to 50 percent. Moreover, this decree concerns only two pipes – the national OJSC Gomeltransneft Druzhba, which transfers profits to the state budget, and Zapad-Transnefteprodukt.
Transneft is trying to challenge the tax as discriminatory, but to no avail. In addition, last year, Belarusian state bodies sent more than 150 inquiries to the operator (five times more than in 2019) and conducted 20 on-site inspections.
According to Grishanin, the company cannot function under such conditions. Against the backdrop of plans to reduce pumping in the coming years from 6 million tons to 3.4 million, the net asset value may turn negative. This situation will give rise to bankruptcy. However, the representative of Transneft pointed out, the Belarusian side refuses to accept these arguments, insisting that the Russian company has a lot of money and can solve the problem.
In the summer of 2020, Belarus has already attacked another Russian oil and gas monopoly. In June, a provisional administration was introduced to Gazprom’s Belgazprombank. The reason for this was the desire of the former head of the credit organization Viktor Babariko to participate in the presidential elections.
In January of this year, despite protests from the Russian side, Nadezhda Ermakova, an associate of the incumbent President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, became the new chairman of the board of Belgazprombank.
Against the background of unprecedented protests after the next presidential election, Lukashenka asked Russia for a loan. Moscow agreed to provide $ 1.5 billion, and Minsk has already received two-thirds of it. The authorities expect the remaining 500 million in the first half of 2021.