* Russian oil flowing in Druzhba pipeline to Europe
* Russia and Belarus fail to clinch deal on oil pricing
* Talks continue in Moscow on 2010 oil pricing
* Belarus warns Moscow over power supplies to enclave
(Changes dateline to include MOSCOW, headline, rewrites with
new sourcing)
By Amie Ferris-Rotman and Olga Tomashevskaya
MOSCOW/MINSK, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Russia said it had resumed
flows of crude to refineries in Belarus but it did not clinch a
deal to resolve a tense price dispute with Minsk that raised
fears oil supplies to European Union countries might be blocked.
Russia's foremost energy official, Igor Sechin, told Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday their country had restarted
supplying refineries in neighbouring ex-Soviet Belarus on Jan.
3, but there were still "no signed agreements" with Minsk.
In a transcript of the Moscow meeting, on government website
gov.ru, Putin told Deputy Prime Minister Sechin he hoped an
agreement over oil deliveries to Belarus for 2010 and beyond
would be reached "sometime soon".
Moscow had halted oil supplies to Belarussian refineries
after failing to agree terms for this year.
"Russia has handed over its proposals to our Belarussian
partners. We are in constant contact with them," Sechin said.
Minsk earlier on Monday warned it may cut electricity
supplies to Russia, ratcheting up tensions in the dispute that
broke out on New Year's Eve.
The spat has raised the spectre of another winter of supply
disruptions for EU customers such as Germany, which buys 15
percent of its oil from the arm of the Druzhba pipeline that
goes to Europe through Belarus.
For a factbox on the pipeline click on []
Sechin on Monday said European customers were unaffected by
the dispute, and a spokeswoman for Belarus state oil company
Belneftekhim said Russian crude was flowing normally through the
Druzhba pipeline. She said refineries were working normally.
But Belarus's state power company said the lack of a proper
agreement governing electricity supply meant it might have to be
cut to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea.
"The Belarussian side will be forced to stop the
unsanctioned commercial transit of electricity across the
Belarussian grid which could threaten supplies to customers in
Kaliningrad," a unit of Belenergo said in a statement.
The dispute and cold weather caused oil <CLc1> to rise to
its highest for more than two months on Monday, to $81 a barrel.
Russia, the world's largest oil and gas producer, has
repeatedly clashed with its neighbours, particularly Ukraine,
over Soviet-style subsidised energy prices, though several
winters of supply disruptions have also strained ties with the
European Union, Moscow's biggest trading partner.
Now the focus has shifted to Belarus, which is in a dispute
with Moscow over how much export duty it should pay to Russia
for supplies which were then refined and exported to the West, a
pillar for the $50 billion Belarussian economy.
Russia wants Belarus to pay tax on oil supplies it does not
consume domestically. Of the 20 million tonnes of crude (400,000
bpd) that Belarus receives annually from Russia, six million
tonnes (120,000 bpd) are used domestically.
The rest is refined by Naftan and Mozyr refineries in
Belarus for re-export to the West. Only a small portion of
refined products actually stay within Belarus.
Minsk wants all 20 million tonnes received annually at a
discounted export duty, as it had before Jan. 1 of this year.
EU SUPPLIES
Politicians in the European Union and the United States have
repeatedly accused Russia of using its vast energy resources to
bring its neighbours to heel, though Moscow says it is simply
trying to bring market pricing for its energy supplies.
Concern over EU energy supplies in the run up to New Year --
the traditional end of energy contracts across the former Soviet
Union -- had focused on Ukraine, through which Russia pumps one
fifth of European Union gas supplies.
But a repeat of the nearly two-week gas supply disruption
last year was avoided when the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
relaxed conditions in December for a multi-billion dollar
bailout to Ukraine, allowing Kiev to pay its gas bill.
In 2008, Germany received around 350,000 barrels per day
(bpd) of crude via Druzhba, or just under 15 percent of its
total consumption. Refineries belonging to Total <TOTF.PA>,
Shell <RDSa.L> and BP <BP.L> are among the biggest buyers of
crude from Druzhba.
Poland imports around 400,000 bpd of crude via Druzhba for
domestic refining, or more than three-quarters of its
consumption, and exports another 90,000 bpd of Druzhba crude via
the Baltic Sea port of Gdansk.
For a graphic click on
http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/RNGS/2010/JAN/RUSSIA.jpg
For a Q+A click on []
For a snap analysis, click on: []
(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Amie Ferris-Rotman;
additional reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov in Moscow; editing by
Anthony Barker)
