ANDREW E. KRAMER of the New York Times international addition wrote on August 2, 2007 from Moscow, Russia that the Russian national gas monopoly Gazprom is upset again about not being paid its outstanding gas bill from the wonderful country of Belarus. Gazprom said that no pay, no gas.
The strong, tough guy tactics could also affect the national monopoly’s customers farther west along Europe’s natural gas pipelines, again raising worries about the reliability of Russian supplies and the wisdom of Europe’s growing dependence on Russian energy.
Poland, Lithuania and parts of Germany and Ukraine are supplied via the pipeline that crosses Belarus, Gazprom said.
The dispute is the latest in a long series over pricing with Ukraine and Belarus. For Belarus, the standoff is the second in seven months, after an agreement to raise prices narrowly averted a gas shutoff last New Year’s Eve.
Gazprom said the national gas company of Belarus was in arrears on payments agreed to during that Dec. 31 compromise. The Moscow-based company issued a statement Wednesday that said it would reduce by 45 percent shipments of natural gas intended for the Belarusian domestic market if the payment was not received.
“There will be no more discussions,” Sergei Kupriyanov, Gazprom’s spokesman, said in a telephone interview. “The Belarusian side is not fulfilling its obligations, so we are going to take measures.”
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