Azernews.Az

MINSK – Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has offered to supply Azerbaijani oil to refineries in Belarus.

"You will win tens of dollars per ton, and we win too," Lukashenko was quoted by Russian Interfax news agency as saying.

Hosting the president of the Azerbaijani state energy firm SOCAR, Rovnag Abdullayev, he said the proposal to supply oil under swap conditions envisions pumping crude through the Odessa-Brody pipeline into the Druzhba conduit and further to Belarusian refineries.

Belarus is seeking to replace oil volumes it produces and buys in Venezuela with Azerbaijani crude. Selling the oil produced in Venezuela in the Americas and supplying Azerbaijani oil to Belarus instead will allow to save on transportation costs.

Lukashenko said he had discussed the issue with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

"Ilham Aliyev treats this normally. I think it’s time to take several steps forward."

The Odessa-Brody pipeline, one of Ukraine's most ambitious projects, was plagued for years by a lack of funding, supplies and political bickering between Russia and the European Union over control of new oil routes. Built in 2002, the pipeline stood idle for two years and was reversed in 2004 to ship Russian oil.

In October 2007 Azerbaijan, Georgia, Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania signed an agreement to develop a feasibility study for the Baku-Tbilisi-Odessa-Brody-Plock-Gdansk oil pipeline and establish a joint venture to build the pipeline. The Polish-Ukrainian consortium, set up on the basis of Poland’s Sarmatia pipeline consortium, was joined in January 2008 by SOCAR, Georgia’s Oil and Gas Corporation and Lithuania’s Klaipedos Nafta company. The conduit, whose construction is due to be completed in 2011, is expected to transport 40 million tons of Caspian oil per year.