Belarus and Gazprom agree on debt settlement

Belarusian authorities have reached an agreement with Russia's gas giant Gazprom on the repayment of debts for natural gas in 2003. The debts, accumulated over the past years, reached $150m, the press secretary of the Belarusian Prime Minister told RBC, referring to Prime Minister Gennady Novitsky speaking at the parliamentary hearings. According to the Belarusian PM, the debts will be repaid in equal installments. He stressed that the reached agreement concerned only the previously accumulated debts while current debts were much higher. Belarusian officials asked Gazprom to increase gas supplies to Belarus to 18.5bn cubic meters, however, according to the Russian side, there is little chance that this requirement will be met. Russia will supply 10.2bn cubic meters of gas to Belarus, according to the set quota, in the event the volume of gas production does not drop in Russia.

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