Russia’s growing clout as a store house of natural gas has proved a bane for tiny neighbor and ally Belarus who will have to pay double the price for gas supply in order to ward off a cold winter.
Russian state-controlled oil and gas monolith, Gazprom, imposed a hundred percent hike in natural gas price that it sells on Belarus as a new year gift. Under the new terms, the price has been increased from $47 will rise to $100 per 1,000 cubic meters.
To add salt to injury, the prices will continue to rise and will gradually be brought at par with market prices, ending Soviet era subsidies to neighboring countries.
The deal helped to avert cutting off supplies to the European Market for Belarus in retaliation was threatening to stop transition of Russian gas through pipelines that pass through its territory.
Gazprom has threatened to halt the gas supplies to Belarus from January 1, if renewed terms of the contract was not signed.
Last year, over a price dispute, Gazprom had cut off supplies to Ukraine and the matter was only resolved when Ukraine agreed to pay $95 per thousand cubic meters.
Europe is heavily dependent on Russia for a quarter of its gas consumption and dependency is likely to increase even further since Europe’s own production level in recent times have dropped.
