Under the contract with Gazprom, Belarus had to pay for gas at the rate of $128 per thousand cubic meters, which is a very favorable price.
However, journalists note, Minsk fell into a trap that it set itself.
“For political purposes, the Belarusian administration has long sought to switch to payments for energy in Russian rubles. After the outbreak of the war, the decision to switch to payments in rubles was made. But not only for Belarus, Moscow demanded the same from the EU gas companies. At the same time, Russia artificially raised the exchange rate of the Russian ruble against both the dollar and the euro and the Belarusian ruble,” the publication explains.
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Now the Russian ruble is worth 56 rubles to the dollar, the market rate would be, perhaps, from 80 to 120. Comfortable for Belarus is 75-80, which it was before the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine.
“Minsk does not make payments at the current rate: if you make one tranche, all the rest will have to be made under the terms of the first one, this is Gazprom’s policy,” an informed source told reporters on condition of anonymity.
At present, Minsk is not paying, waiting for the ruble to weaken, or until it manages to change the price formula in the deal.
“So far they are trading,” a source told Nasha Niva.
According to him, the EU imports 155 billion cubic meters a year from Russia. As part of the new strategy, Brussels plans to receive 50 billion cubic meters by importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States or Qatar, 10 billion cubic meters from existing pipelines, and an equivalent of another 25 billion cubic meters will be produced through the accelerated launch of offshore wind turbines and photovoltaic panels.
