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Belarusian oil refinery Naftan starts receiving U.S. oil

MINSK, 11 June (BelTA) – The oil refinery Naftan has started receiving American oil, BelTA learned from Aleksandr Tishchenko, Press Secretary of the Belarusian state petrochemical concern Belneftekhim.

The official said: “American oil has reached Naftan. At noon they started draining oil from tank cars of the train that arrived in the morning. The train comprises 60 tank cars, but American oil occupies 17 tank cars because it is attached to the remainder of Arab oil [a tanker brought oil from Saudi Arabia to Klaipeda in May].”

The oil refinery is getting ready for processing American oil. The entire shipment of American oil will be delivered to the oil refinery over the course of ten days.

BelTA reported earlier that a tanker carrying 77,000 tonnes of U.S. oil of the Bakken variety from Texas arrived in the Klaipeda port on 5 June. The crude oil is supposed to be processed by the Novopolotsk-based refinery OAO Naftan.

According to Belneftekhim, it is the 12th tanker shipment of oil Belarus has acquired from alternative sources this year. The total amount of oil delivered by tankers has already exceeded 1 million tonnes.

The deal to deliver the first batch of U.S. oil to Belarus was sealed with assistance of the American energy resources trading company United Energy Trading and with assistance of the U.S. company Getka and their Polish partner UNIMOT.

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