"The Parties have made it a point to meet each other halfway on gas export pricing. The decisions they made leave the company satisfied," a company official said to Novosti.
All bilateral gas-related issues have been satisfied, with token exceptions, President Putin said to the media after summitry.
"Belarus is buying gas not from Russia but from Russian-based companies. Disputes that are coming up in that field are all too often regarded as interstate, though they are certainly intercorporate," he emphasized.
Belarus is $123.33 million in debt to Gazprom Co. for gas imported from 1997 into last year, as of June 2, 2004.
Gazprom and Beltransgaz, Belarus' head gas company, signed an understanding, December 5, 2003, to reschedule a basic $72.28 million gas import debt for 1999 and 2001. The sum will be paid in money within three years. The pattern of fine payments will be eventually determined in a special paper.
Russia piped 30.9 billion cubic meters of export-oriented natural gas via Belarus last year alone. There are several gas export routes crossing Belarus. The one, bound for Poland and on to Germany, involves the Yamal-Europe mainline, and amounts to an annual average 21.6 billion cu m. Belarussian-based pipelines take Russian gas to Ukraine and Lithuania and, via it, on to the Kaliningrad Region, Russia's Baltic exclave.
This year's Russian gas exports via Belarus are expected at an approximate 32.5 billion cu m. The Gazprom-owned Yamal-Europe transcontinental mainline-principal of those crossing Belarus-will account for 23 billion of the whole.
The Yamal-Europe is 575 kilometers long, with one branch rated throughput at an annual 33 billion cubic meters.
