Today Minsk hosted a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Mikhail Myasnikovich, Prime Minister of the Republic of Belarus.

The parties continued negotiating the terms and conditions of Russian gas supply to and transit via Belarus in the context of increasing Gazprom's stake in Beltransgaz to 100 per cent.

“We are having a very constructive dialogue with our Belarusian partners. There are all prerequisites for completing the negotiations and signing a new contract in early December this year,” noted Alexey Miller.

Background

On December 31, 2006 Gazprom and Beltransgaz signed the gas supply and transit contract for 2007–2011. In particular, starting from January 1, 2008 the contract fixed a price formula (corresponding to the price formula for Russian gas deliveries to Europe) and discount coefficients for 2008–2010 (0.67, 0.8 and 0.9 respectively).

In August 2011 Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin tasked the Russian Energy Ministry and Gazprom with determining a gas price discount size for Belarus from 2012.

Gazprom owns a 50 per cent stake in Beltransgaz.