Belarus Lost ‘Hundreds Millions Of Dollars’ Due To Contaminated Russian Oil – Lukashenko

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Saturday that he expected Russia not to dispute the damage done by contaminated Russian oil coming to Belarus through Druzhba pipeline, which amounts to hundreds millions of dollars, according to preliminary estimates

MINSK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik -) Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Saturday that he expected Russia not to dispute the damage done by contaminated Russian oil coming to Belarus through Druzhba pipeline, which amounts to hundreds millions of Dollars, according to preliminary estimates.

Lukashenko said earlier in the day that Minsk would announce the final amount of damage after an audit.

“He [Russian President Vladimir Putin] understands that there should be a compensation for the damage. He has said himself that the incident has resulted in huge reputational damage for Russia. Meanwhile, Belarus is in the center of this damage. We have suffered most. He has publicly acknowledged that the damage is huge. How big exactly is it? Experts will count. I believe Russians should not dispute this … This [the damage] amounts to hundreds millions of dollars. Journalists often refer to this sum of money, and they are not so far from the truth,” Lukashenko said, as quoted by the Belta news agency.

He recalled that the Novopolotsk refinery had cut its load by 50 percent, while the Mozyr oil refinery had cut it by two-thirds over the incident, stressing that Minsk had faced a certain revenue shortfall because of this.

Lukashenko added that several aspects would be taken into consideration during the audit.

“The huge damage has been done to the pipeline and the pipeline equipment, including pumps at stations and everything else, and also to the oil refineries. Two oil refineries have been contaminated, and the Mozyr oil refinery has been contaminated more that the Novopolotsk oil refinery. The country has faced a huge damage,” he said.

The Belarusian president stressed that Belarus would not speculate on the incident and would not link the compensation that it aspired to receive to the situation around the so-called tax maneuver, a new Russian tax regulation, which envisaged the gradual lifting of the export duty on oil and an increase in the severance tax by 2024.

Minsk has claimed that the maneuver could cost Belarus $11 billion.

“This has nothing to do with the tax maneuver. A disaster has struck. Has it been done intentionally? Let them [Russia] look into it themselves. According to reports that I receive, clean oil is already coming to our oil refineries. We have pumped out some of the poisoned oil and placed it to our repositories. Russians should take it out from there, or we will find some option for using this oil. As far as I believe, this epic story is coming to its end in Belarus, while it continues in Europe,” Lukashenko said.

The Belarusian leader added that he had not discussed the sum and the mechanism of the compensation that Belarus hoped to receive from Russia with Putin yet. Meanwhile, Putin has publicly acknowledged that a damage has been done, Lukashenko recalled.

The problem with the quality of oil coming from Russia to Belarus through Druzhba pipeline of the Russian state-owned Transneft oil transport monopoly arose in April. Poland and Ukraine halted oil transit from Russia via Belarus after it was discovered that the transported oil was contaminated with chlorides. Russia launched an investigation into the matter and has so far detained four people over the incident. Uncontaminated Russia oil reached the Belarusian border on May 2 and it reached the Mozyr oil refinery last Sunday.

Putin said in late April that Russia had suffered “very serious” reputational, economic and material damages from the situation