Gazprom plans to boost gas transit through Belarus by 30 percent

YEREVAN, November 23, /ARKA/. Russian Gazprom plans to invest $2 billion to expand Belarusian natural-gas pipelines and boost fuel transit shipments from this nation to the European Union by 30 percent, Gazprom Chief Executive Officer Alexei Miller said yesterday after a meeting with Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko.

“At present we see that we could consider the possibility of increasing Russian gas transit via Belarus by 30%. Relevant instructions to develop the feasibility study will be given. In the near future we will put together the document. It will be worked out in close cooperation with the Belarus government. I think we will get down to this work in 2013,” said Alexei Miller.

Gazprom chief said during the meeting with Alexander Lukashenko earlier that day he spoke about the advisability of starting the reconstruction of compressor stations and the pipes. “Then we could considerably increase transit volumes within a sufficiently short time, within three or four years. In the future we are ready to invest in creating new installations to transit gas via Belarus,” said Alexei Miller.

In his words, the 100% workload of Belarus’ transit installations will be reached this year. “We will transit 44.5 billion cubic meters of gas.

Miller also said Gazprom believes it is necessary to expand the active capacities of underground natural gas storage facilities in Belarus. 

“First of all, we need to pay attention to the Mozyr underground gas storage facility. We believe that the capacities of the active underground gas storage facilities should be expanded using this underground storage facility. We plan to construct a gas pipeline from the Mozyr underground gas storage facility towards the Nesvizh gas compressor station in the direction of Minsk,” Miller said. -0-