MINSK, 22 June (BelTA) – Belarus has not been importing Venezuelan oil under any schemes from June 2012, First Deputy Premier of Belarus Vladimir Semashko told reporters on 22 June, BelTA has learnt. “Oil supplies from Venezuela were a brotherly gesture to help our country out when we needed it,” Vladimir Semashko said. Belarus benefited from the import of Venezuelan oil in 2010. Back then a strategic task was fulfilled. “If not for the oil imports from Venezuela in 2010-2012, there would not have been the agreement we passed on 25 November 2011 on the common market of oil and oil products. I am sure about it,” he emphasized. Venezuelan oil helped Belarus diversify its oil imports. Today the Odessa-Brody pipeline comes near Mozyr Oil Refinery. In essence, the director of the refinery has an access to the valve; so if some situations emerge, they will be settled very fast,” Vladimir Semashko said. It means that if the company does not have enough oil to process, it will be able to take it from the Odessa-Brody pipeline. However, such situations are merely hypothetical. Now Belarus can receive cheap Russian oil, Vladimir Semashko said. He informed that every month Belarus received about 160,000 tonnes of Venezuelan oil.

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