Belarusian fuel to be exported via Russia

Transneft is going to build a diesel pipeline from Belarusian oil refineries to the port of Ust-Luga. If the project is implemented, it will not only deprive the Baltic ports of loading, where the fuel is delivered by rail, in favor of Russian ones, but will also return a part of export duties, transferred to Belarus, to the Russian budget. But for a while the pipe has not enough resource base, and, according to analysts, the involvement of Belarusian oil refiners in the project may be required.

Transneft considers the possibility to build an oil products pipeline from the Mozyr and Novopolotsk oil refineries in Belarus to the port of Ust-Luga in the Leningrad region, the company’s vice-president Sergei Andronov reports. The length of bend should reach 800 km, capacity - up to 5 million tons of diesel fuel per year. Now Belarusian diesel fuel is exported to Western Europe through the Baltic ports, mainly Latvian Ventspils. The fuel is delivered there by rail. If the project of Transneft is implemented, oil products will be transported through Russian ports, but in this case the Belarusian budget could lose export duties, collected from them. According to Sergei Andronov, in additional to Belarus the new pipeline could also take a part of fuel from refineries in the European part of Russia, which are not connected to the oil products pipeline Sever (Kstovo-Yaroslavl-Kirishi-Primorsk).