MINSK, June 23 (BelTA) – President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko believes that in order to enhance the efficiency of the petrochemical industry and increase the revenues to the budget and the consumer market it is necessary to look for more efficient ways to supply oil to Belarus and sell oil products abroad. The Belarusian leader made this statement at a meeting dedicated to oil refinery issues on June 23.
The President noted that this industry is demonstrating a stable and predictable performance. Two Belarusian oil refinery enterprises are working at full capacity, the petrochemical industry is provided with the necessary raw materials. The demand for oil products by households, agriculture and industries is fulfilled. “The major challenge is to provide oil refining and petrochemical enterprises with raw materials and to cut financial, material and labour costs, to prevent the shortage or rise in prices for petroleum-based fuels on the domestic market,” the head of state said.
Alexander Lukashenko said that Belarus is expanding oil extraction in other countries, including Venezuela and Iran. However, the bulk of oil comes to Belarus from Russia in line with the Union State coordinated balance of raw materials for 2009 at the amount of 21.5 million tonnes. In general, this amount is sufficient to load the production capacities of Belarusian enterprises. According to the President, there is still some room to raise the efficiency of oil supplies. This can be achieved through the increase in oil supplies via oil pipelines and by railways, through the reduction of transportation costs.
The President underlined that over the recent years a special importance was attached to the modernization of oil refineries; a number of financially-intensive projects was implemented; hundreds of millions of dollars were invested. According to the Belarusian head of state, this investment is paying back. The modernization efforts helped increase the processing depth which means that more useful products are extracted from crude oil. Now the processing depth indices meet high international standards, a mutually beneficial oil price formula was devised. The Belarusian Oil Company was set up to boost the sales of Belarusian oil products abroad. Nevertheless, there is still some potential to save money, from the supplies of raw materials to the sales of ready products. The ongoing meeting will give an opportunity to discuss means to enhance the quality of the imported raw materials and cut their transportation costs and a number of other issues.
