Oil Painfully Affected Sasha The Cockroach

• 22.07.2020, 8:57

Imports of "black gold" in Belarus have been halved.

After a sharp increase in Russian oil supplies in April, when the Belarusian refineries received more oil than in the entire first quarter, in May, the volume of imports almost halved, Tomorrow of Your Country reports.

This is evidenced by the data published by the National Statistics Committee of Belarus on the results of trade between Belarus and Russia in January-May 2020.

In January this year, 509.3 thousand tons of Russian oil were imported into Belarus, while in February - 392.9 thousand tons and in March - 654.8 thousand tons. In April, import volumes rose sharply and for the first time this year exceeded one million tons - 1,659.3 thousand tons. However, in May, supplies went down: this month, Belarus received 867.8 thousand tons of oil from Russia.

In general, in January-May this year, Belarus bought 4,048.1 thousand tons of Russian oil worth about $689.8 million. In physical terms, it's 57.6% against the same period last year, while in value terms - only 25.3%.

The drop in trade turnover between the countries this year is largely due to the reduction of oil in mutual trade. According to the results of five months, it was about $10.8 billion, which is 22.6% less than in the same period last year.

Imports from Russia decreased by 32.5% (to $5.8 billion), while exports of Belarusian goods - by 6.2% (almost $5 billion).