President Dmitry Medvedev reached an undisclosed agreement Monday with Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko on a price for Russian gas exports next year after Lukashenko offered some tough comments ahead of their meeting.
An accommodation with Ukraine remained more distant, as Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov warned 13 European Union leaders on Monday of possible disruptions of deliveries if supplies to Ukraine, a major transit country, were cut.
Although no details for the Belarussian deal were released, Lukashenko appeared to have won concessions from Moscow if the curt statement issued by the Kremlin afterward was any indication.
"The talks have produced an agreement about the main principles" of supplying gas to Belarus and payments next year, said Natalya Timakova, Medvedev's spokeswoman.
Lukashenko said ahead of the talks Belarus couldn't afford the initial price proposal from Gazprom of at least $200 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas. The country's First Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Semashko said Belarus was looking for a price of $140.
A source in the Belarussian delegation said the price reached during the talks was "quite acceptable," Interfax reported. Belarus and Russia also reached a security-related deal, the source said.
Spokeswomen for the Kremlin and Lukashenko's administration in Minsk declined to comment on the gas deal, as did a Gazprom spokesman.
The security deal may have involved a joint air-defense system, a proposal that Belarus has balked at in the past, said Alexander Fadeyev, a researcher at the CIS Institute, a think tank studying the former Soviet republics.
Lukashenko came into the negotiations with some bluster, warning Medvedev in an opening speech on Monday that Russia would suffer if high gas prices crippled the Belarussian economy. Russian companies supplying industrial components to partners in Belarus would have to lay off 10 million employees if those partners were to go bankrupt, he said. Belarus itself has a population of just under 10 million.
"I want to publicly sweep away all kinds of insinuations that have been voiced lately about Belarus going as far as to crawl to the Kremlin to beg for something," he said. "I want to say right off: We are absolutely not going to beg for anything at all."
The fact that no official information was made public about Monday's deal indicates that the talks were difficult and failed to reach an exact agreement, Fadeyev said. Lukashenko simply got assurances that the price wouldn't rise to the level against which he had protested.
An earlier agreement, reached in 2006, stipulated that Belarus would enjoy a 20-percent discount next year on the price Russia charges for gas delivered to the EU.
There was also no information on whether a Belarussian request for a loan of 100 billion rubles ($3.5 billion) in exchange for denominating gas payments in rubles had been granted. Deputy Finance Minister Dmitry Pankin announced on Monday that the proposal had been made, Interfax reported.
Any new loan would be the third extended by Moscow to Minsk in the space of 12 months. Most recently, it agreed last month to lend Belarus $2 billion, of which half has already been transferred and the other half is to be provided before the end of February. Belarus borrowed $1.5 billion in December 2007.
Both loans are long term, for 15 years, with this year's loan at an interest rate of LIBOR plus 3 percent, and last December's at LIBOR plus 0.75 percent.
If all that is left is to finalize some of the specifics with Belarus, gas talks with Ukraine appear to have made little, if any headway.
The message to EU leaders from Zubkov, who is also chairman of Gazprom, said Ukraine would be to blame for any possible disruptions of the gas transit, the Cabinet said in an e-mailed statement.
Moscow, he said in the message, had offered to pay Kiev in advance for the transit of Russian gas across Ukraine, which would be able to use the funds to cover what it owes for gas already delivered. Ukraine refused, he said.
Zubkov said that Ukraine's delay in paying is "especially perplexing" after the International Monetary Fund agreed to provide it with $16.5 billion in loans to cover budget outlays and support its banking system.
"I would like to assure you that Gazprom will, as usual, fully meet its contractual obligations to European clients," Zubkov said. "At the same time, it cannot be ruled out that the current position of the Ukrainian side or some of its steps ... might lead to a breach of stability in delivering gas to Europe."
Russia will continue intensive talks with Ukraine in the days remaining before the end of the year, Zubkov said.
Ukraine would not tap into EU-bound supplies because it has a reserve of gas sufficient to last through the end of spring, said Oleksandr Shlapak, first deputy chief of staff for Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.
"Ukraine will not steal anyone's gas in the new year," Shlapak said Monday, Interfax reported.
Ukraine's national gas company, Naftogaz Ukrainy, has put aside 16 billion cubic meters of gas in underground storage facilities, Shlapak said.
He also said that Yushchenko had agreed to a price based on the formula Gazprom uses in its contracts with the EU, but only if that price would only apply for the first quarter of 2009, and could later be reduced.
The formula Gazprom uses pegs its prices to those for oil, but with a lag of six to nine months, meaning the first quarter prices will be some of the highest in its history, or upward of $400.
An accommodation with Ukraine remained more distant, as Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov warned 13 European Union leaders on Monday of possible disruptions of deliveries if supplies to Ukraine, a major transit country, were cut.
Although no details for the Belarussian deal were released, Lukashenko appeared to have won concessions from Moscow if the curt statement issued by the Kremlin afterward was any indication.
"The talks have produced an agreement about the main principles" of supplying gas to Belarus and payments next year, said Natalya Timakova, Medvedev's spokeswoman.
Lukashenko said ahead of the talks Belarus couldn't afford the initial price proposal from Gazprom of at least $200 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas. The country's First Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Semashko said Belarus was looking for a price of $140.
A source in the Belarussian delegation said the price reached during the talks was "quite acceptable," Interfax reported. Belarus and Russia also reached a security-related deal, the source said.
Spokeswomen for the Kremlin and Lukashenko's administration in Minsk declined to comment on the gas deal, as did a Gazprom spokesman.
The security deal may have involved a joint air-defense system, a proposal that Belarus has balked at in the past, said Alexander Fadeyev, a researcher at the CIS Institute, a think tank studying the former Soviet republics.
Lukashenko came into the negotiations with some bluster, warning Medvedev in an opening speech on Monday that Russia would suffer if high gas prices crippled the Belarussian economy. Russian companies supplying industrial components to partners in Belarus would have to lay off 10 million employees if those partners were to go bankrupt, he said. Belarus itself has a population of just under 10 million.
"I want to publicly sweep away all kinds of insinuations that have been voiced lately about Belarus going as far as to crawl to the Kremlin to beg for something," he said. "I want to say right off: We are absolutely not going to beg for anything at all."
The fact that no official information was made public about Monday's deal indicates that the talks were difficult and failed to reach an exact agreement, Fadeyev said. Lukashenko simply got assurances that the price wouldn't rise to the level against which he had protested.
An earlier agreement, reached in 2006, stipulated that Belarus would enjoy a 20-percent discount next year on the price Russia charges for gas delivered to the EU.
There was also no information on whether a Belarussian request for a loan of 100 billion rubles ($3.5 billion) in exchange for denominating gas payments in rubles had been granted. Deputy Finance Minister Dmitry Pankin announced on Monday that the proposal had been made, Interfax reported.
Any new loan would be the third extended by Moscow to Minsk in the space of 12 months. Most recently, it agreed last month to lend Belarus $2 billion, of which half has already been transferred and the other half is to be provided before the end of February. Belarus borrowed $1.5 billion in December 2007.
Both loans are long term, for 15 years, with this year's loan at an interest rate of LIBOR plus 3 percent, and last December's at LIBOR plus 0.75 percent.
If all that is left is to finalize some of the specifics with Belarus, gas talks with Ukraine appear to have made little, if any headway.
The message to EU leaders from Zubkov, who is also chairman of Gazprom, said Ukraine would be to blame for any possible disruptions of the gas transit, the Cabinet said in an e-mailed statement.
Moscow, he said in the message, had offered to pay Kiev in advance for the transit of Russian gas across Ukraine, which would be able to use the funds to cover what it owes for gas already delivered. Ukraine refused, he said.
Zubkov said that Ukraine's delay in paying is "especially perplexing" after the International Monetary Fund agreed to provide it with $16.5 billion in loans to cover budget outlays and support its banking system.
"I would like to assure you that Gazprom will, as usual, fully meet its contractual obligations to European clients," Zubkov said. "At the same time, it cannot be ruled out that the current position of the Ukrainian side or some of its steps ... might lead to a breach of stability in delivering gas to Europe."
Russia will continue intensive talks with Ukraine in the days remaining before the end of the year, Zubkov said.
Ukraine would not tap into EU-bound supplies because it has a reserve of gas sufficient to last through the end of spring, said Oleksandr Shlapak, first deputy chief of staff for Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.
"Ukraine will not steal anyone's gas in the new year," Shlapak said Monday, Interfax reported.
Ukraine's national gas company, Naftogaz Ukrainy, has put aside 16 billion cubic meters of gas in underground storage facilities, Shlapak said.
He also said that Yushchenko had agreed to a price based on the formula Gazprom uses in its contracts with the EU, but only if that price would only apply for the first quarter of 2009, and could later be reduced.
The formula Gazprom uses pegs its prices to those for oil, but with a lag of six to nine months, meaning the first quarter prices will be some of the highest in its history, or upward of $400.
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