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Belarus finds it expedient to use ports in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine for oil imports

The Council of Ministers has adopted the Strategy for the Development of the Energy Potential of the Republic of Belarus for the period until the end of 2020, which says that experts have found it expedient to use the Ukrainian ports of Odessa and Yuzhne, the Latvian port of Ventspils and Estonia’s Tallinn as transshipment points for oil deliveries from Venezuela, Azerbaijan and Persian Gulf countries, BelaPAN reports.

According to the Strategy, Odessa’s sea-rail transshipment capacity is up to 240,000 tons a month. As for Yuzhne, the port is the final point of the Odessa-Brody pipeline that is currently used for transferring Russia’s Urals oil in the reverse direction but can potentially be operated in the forward direction for the transportation of oil from Yuzhne to Belarus’ oil refinery in Mazyr.

The document also says that there is a potential possibility of delivering oil from Ventspils by both rail and pipeline, and that “it is strategically important to ensure the reverse use of the Polatsk-Ventspils pipeline.” For this purpose, it is necessary to build a pump station in the area of the terminal and “carry out additional modernization of supply lines.”

As for Klaipeda, the Strategy reads that Lithuania “is interested in the organization of oil transportation via the port of Klaipeda provided there are long-term guarantees that the port’s transshipment capacity is fully used in a period of five years.”