OREANDA-NEWS. January 31, 2011.Regular oil deliveries via the Odessa-Brody pipeline to Mozyr Oil Refinery will start on 29 January, First Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Vladimir Semashko said as he took part in a meeting of the Gomel Oblast Executive Committee on 28 January.

According to Vladimir Semashko, a tanker with Azerbaijani oil, which will substitute Venezuelan oil in line with the swap agreement, has already arrived at the seaport. As it was reported earlier, there are plans to pump about four million tonnes of oil in 2011.

Vladimir Semashko also spoke about the short-term prospects of Gomel Oblast’s big industrial enterprises such as Mozyr Oil Refinery, which have a considerable impact on the economy of the region. He stressed that the oil refinery will operate at full capacity this year. Despite some delay due to well-know reasons early this year, in Q1 2011 the plant is set to increase production of commodity products by 10% over the previous year.

Vladimir Semashko also said a few words about the recent Belarus-Russia negotiations on oil deliveries. He stressed that in spite of the high-level agreement on duty-free oil deliveries, the Russian party initially proposed to raise the price by USD 90-100 per 1 tonne of oil. However, the parties agreed to reduce this figure three times.