Belarus Seeks to Exchange Refineries for Access to Russian Oil and Gas Fields

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said that Belarus could be interested in privatising its oil refineries in exchange for access to Russian oil and gas fields.

Speaking at a press conference today, President Lukashenko said that his country was more than willing to sell its oil refineries to Russian businesses if, in turn, it could become involved in the extraction of oil and gas in Russia.

"We give you the oil refineries; you may refine your own oil and we will refine ours," the Belarusian Telegraph Agency reports him as saying. "But you should let us extract natural gas just like the foreigners do."

If allowed, the deal could mean a lowering of gas prices to Belarus, with supply divided between pricier Russian imports and Russian gas more cheaply extracted and sold by Belarusian explorers.

"We use 22 billion cubic metres of gas. Let us extract 10 billion. It may be cheaper than buying. Your natural gas is expensive, our gas will be cheap that we will extract from the deposits you will give us just like Englishmen and Americans are given, on equal terms. We will have 10 billion cubic metres of cheap gas and 12 billion of expensive Russian gas. It will be acceptable for us."

The president accepted that he may face criticism for the proposal, similar to the criticism he faced when Belarus allowed the takeover of the partly state-owned Beltransgaz by Russian major Gazprom last year. However, the benefits of the proposal meant that he would survive the criticism, he told reporters today.