Business news

Belarusian oil refineries operating at minimum capacity, work in progress to sign new contracts

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MINSK, 3 January (BelTA) – Belarusian oil refineries -- Mozyr Oil Refinery and OAO Naftan – have reduced their workload to the minimum the technology allows. Work is now in progress to sign contracts on oil deliveries in January, representatives of the Belarusian state petrochemical concern Belneftekhim told BelTA.

The source said: “We had to reduce the workload of the oil refineries to the technological minimum in order to prevent the shutdown and downtime of the production assets.”

Belneftekhim confirmed that oil deliveries from Russia had stopped. “Active work is now in progress to sign January contracts,” the source said. Oil deliveries from the Russian Federation and from alternative sources are under consideration.

On 31 December Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko met with top officials of the national petrochemical industry to discuss matters of oil deliveries and oil refining. On that day Aleksandr Lukashenko gave instructions to finish negotiations between commercial entities of Belarus and Russia within hours and sign contracts on oil deliveries to Belarus in order to ensure the uninterrupted operation of the two Belarusian oil refineries. The head of state also gave instructions to ensure the delivery of oil from alternative sources within the next few days. Oil delivery by rail from Baltic Sea ports was mentioned as well as alternative deliveries via the oil pipeline system Druzhba.

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