February 07, 2007	Wednesday	Muharram 18, 1428

MINSK, Feb 6: Belarus is to increase transit fees for Russian oil pumped through its territory to the European Union by more than 30 per cent, the economics ministry said on its Internet site on Tuesday.

Under a ministerial order on "charges for oil transit transportation services" the fees will be increased by 34.6 per cent along a northern branch of the Druzhba pipeline going to Poland and Germany and by 31.6 per cent on a southern branch to Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, the ministry said in a statement.

The changes come into effect from Feb 15, the ministry said.

They follow a dispute last month between Russia and Belarus over an attempt by Minsk to impose a heavy customs duty on oil transiting through Belarus, which led to a three-day cut in supplies to the European Union.

The Druzhba pipeline is Russia's main oil export route and supplies around 12.5 per cent of the European Union's oil consumption. Since last month's crisis, Russia has announced plans to bypass Belarus for oil exports.

However, Moscow gave only a muted reaction to the latest move by Belarus.

"We will study the fees ... If the increase in fees is within the framework of indexed tariffs, I think it's normal," Russian Economy Minister German Gref was quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency as saying.

The Belarussian statement said the price increases were comparable to transit fees in other countries and were being introduced because they had not been changed in a long time and because of a rise in the cost of pumping the oil.—AFP