Russia is offering Belarus gas at sharply lower prices and is also extending to it a loan worth $10 billion for a nuclear plant, Reuters reports. Belarus, for which the average price for 2012 was set at $165.6, will now pay $164 per 1,000 cubic meters of Russian gas in the first three months of next year.
It will buy purchase 22.5 billion cubic meters of gas next year, then in 2013 and 2014 it may take 23 billion cubic meters a year. As a part of the deal, open joint stock company Gazprom will become a sole owner of Belarus’ gas pipeline network operator Beltransgaz by acquiring a 50 percent stake it had not yet owned for $2.5 billion.
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