Belarus ups oil imports 10.5%, petroleum product exports 24% in 9M
MINSK. Nov 16 (Interfax) - Belarus boosted oil imports 10.5% year-on-year to 16.5 million tonnes in January-September 2012, the National Statistics Committee (Belstat) reported.
The country imported almost all of its oil - 16.2 million tonnes - from Russia, an increase of 16.4%. Oil deliveries from Venezuela plummeted 68.4% to 300,000 tonnes in January-September.
The average price of imported oil was down 13.1% to $407 a tonne. The average price of oil imported from Russia fell 10.2% to $396 per tonne, while the price of oil from Venezuela averaged up 15.5% to $973 per tonne.
Petroleum product imports increased 2.4-fold to 8.327 million tonnes in the first nine months of this year, including 8.303 million tonnes from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) (8.296 million tonnes of which were from Russia, up 2.4-fold). The average petroleum products price declined 5% year-on-year to $588 per tonne.
Belarus exported 14.1 million tonnes of petroleum products in January-September, or 24.1% more than it exported in the same nine months of last year. Exports to the CIS soared 60% to 3.8 million tonnes, and exports to other countries climbed 13.9% to 10.3 million tonnes. The average export price rose 3.3% to $834 per tonne.
Belarus exported 1.236 million tonnes of oil produced within the country in January-September, down 1.7% year-on-year. Average export prices edged down 0.9% to $785 per tonne, with all exports being sent to non-CIS countries.
Natural gas imports fell 3.3% to 14.3 billion cubic meters (bcm), with the import price averaging at $168 per 1,000 cubic meters, down 32.6%. Belarus imported all of its natural gas from Russia.
Electricity imports jumped 50.7% to 5.993 billion kilowatt hours (kWh), almost all of which originated in Ukraine and Russia. The import price averaged up 0.6% to $62 per 1,000 kWh.
Energy exports were up 25.3% to $12.934 billion in January-September, while imports rose 9.9% to $14.535 billion. For the first nine months of this year, Belarus had an energy commodity trade deficit worth $1.6 billion, compared to a $2.905-billion deficit in the same nine months of last year, Belstat reported.
