{"id":123,"date":"2007-08-02T00:05:17","date_gmt":"2007-08-02T00:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-finance-zone.co.uk\/commodities\/gazprom-to-cut-belarus-gas-supplies\/"},"modified":"2007-08-02T00:05:17","modified_gmt":"2007-08-02T00:05:17","slug":"gazprom-to-cut-belarus-gas-supplies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/2007\/08\/02\/gazprom-to-cut-belarus-gas-supplies\/","title":{"rendered":"Gazprom to cut Belarus Gas supplies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned gas monopoly, has announced that it will almost halve supplies to neighbouring Belarus because of a $500m (\u00c2\u00a3247m) unpaid bill.<\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In a repeat of supply disputes with former Soviet republics in 2005 and 2006, Gazprom says Minsk has failed to pay in full for previous shipments. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

While 20% of Gazprom’s European exports pass through Belarus, the firm said provisions to Europe should not be hit. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Moscow denies accusations that it uses it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gas supplies to bully its neighbours. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Moscow \u00c2\u00a0insists that price rises last year for Belarus, Ukraine and Georgia simply reflect the end of Soviet-era subsidies. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Gazprom’s decision to cut supplies to Belarus by 45% from 3 August comes after Belarus missed a 23 July deadline to pay the $500m. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“Gazprom will take all possible measures for the transportation of Russian gas through the territory of Belarus in full accordance with current obligations before European customers,” it said in a statement. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“We are acting in strict accordance with our contract,” added Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kuprianov. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Belarus’ energy ministry said it was continuing talks with Gazprom to try to resolve the problem. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“We take these developments very seriously,” said EU spokesman Martin Selmayr. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“We call on both sides to resolve the dispute without delay and to create conditions for the timely resumption of deliveries.” <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

At the end of 2006, Belarus was within minutes of seeing its gas supplies cut when it agreed to start paying $100 per 1,000 cubic metres, compared with a previous price of $47. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Ukraine was also forced to start paying more for its Russian gas in 2006, but not before Gazprom reduced its supplies, leading to a knock-on reduction in gas passing through the country to western Europe. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This dispute sparked concern within the European Union about their energy security and the future reliably of Russian gas, which now accounts for much of European requirements. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned gas monopoly, has announced that it will almost halve supplies to neighbouring Belarus because of a $500m<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commodities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}