Belarus Expects the First Batch of Oil from Saudi Arabia

80 thousand tons of oil purchased by Belarus from the Saudi national oil company Saudi Aramco will be delivered by tanker to the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda. 80 thousand tons of oil was bought by Belarus in Saudi Arabia from the national oil company Saudi Aramco. BelTAso news agency reports on Wednesday, April 29, referring to the press secretary of the Belneftekhim concern Alexander Tishchenko. According to Tishchenko, the arrival of an oil tanker in the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda is expected on May 11. “Further cooperation will depend on the market situation,” he said when asked about further plans for the purchase of Saudi oil. Minsk oil dispute with Moscow Having not agreed on a price, from January 1, 2020, Russia cut off oil supplies to Belarus, after which Minsk quickly began to look for alternatives, for which it sent out commercial offers on its purchase of oil to enterprises in Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic countries, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. In January, the Belarusian oil company BNT purchased a batch of Norwegian oil from the Johan Sverdrup field. 80 thousand tons of raw materials were delivered by tanker to the port of Klaipeda, and from there to the Novopolotsk Refinery (Naftan) by rail. March 9, the price of oil on the world market fell by 30% due to the failure of OPEC member countries to agree with Russia and its other partners to additionally reduce oil production in the face of falling demand due to coronavirus. The main problem of Minsk is the untreated logistics of alternative oil supplies. In April, Belarus received about 2 million tons of oil. Of these, 1.56 million tons are Russian deliveries, the rest is tanker deliveries, including from Azerbaijan and Norway, and own production, BelTA points out.