DUSHANBE, December 24, 2014, Asia-Plus – Tajikistan and Russia are conducting negotiations on Russian fuel deliveries to Tajikistan in 2015, Russian Ambassador to Tajikistan Igor Lyakin-Frolov told journalists in Dushanbe on December 24.
“In 2015, Russia will supply one million tons of duty-free oil products to Tajikistan,” Ambassador Lyakin-Frolov said, noting that a totaled will include 600,000 tons of gasoline and diesel fuel.
Negotiations on duty-free oil products deliveries to Tajikistan reportedly began in early October.
Under the indicative fuel balance endorsed for 2015, Russia is expected to deliver one million tons of duty-free oil products to Tajikistan.
An official source at the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources of Tajikistan says that if Tajikistan does not purchase one million ton of oil products next year, the indicative fuel balance volume will automatically decrease.
According to the data of the Agency for Statistics under the President of Tajikistan, Tajikistan has imported nearly 478,000 tons of oil products over the first ten months of this year with 90 percent of them imported from the Russian Federation.
Deputy Minister of Energy and Water Resources, Emomiddin Aslov, says Tajikistan’s annual requirements in oil products will increase next year and will amount to 1.89 million tons.
We will recall that Tajikistan was exempted from paying Russian tariffs on oil and gas exports from 1995-2010 and Russia cancelled Tajikistan’s tax exemption on May 1, 2010 that resulted in gasoline prices rising in the country.
On October 5, 2012, the Ministry of Energy and Industries of Tajikistan and the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation signed a memorandum on the conditions for the delivery of Russian oil products to Tajikistan and on February 6, 2013, Dushanbe and Moscow signed a government-to-government agreement on duty-free Russian oil product deliveries to Tajikistan.
Under this agreement, the sides consider and endorse the indicative fuel balance for the next calendar before October 1 of each year. Fuels delivered in addition to the indicative fuel balance are liable to export duty.
Russian oil products delivered to Tajikistan in the volumes not exceeding those agreed on indicative balance are not subject to re-export to the third countries. This ban also applies to Russian oil products delivered to Tajikistan from other member nations of the Customs Union.
