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Naftan Suffers Blow: Ukraine Refuses To Buy Bitumen From navapolatsk

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Naftan Suffers Blow: Ukraine Refuses To Buy Bitumen From navapolatsk

Will the regime lose the Ukrainian construction market?

As Nasha Niva has learnt, large Ukrainian buyers of bitumen have paused relations with Naftan Navapolatsk, and are waiting for June 3 to understand the clear mechanism of the US sanctions, and calculate possible actions.

The plan of the Ukrainian businessmen was to pay Naftan more money in advance, even before the start of the sanctions, and then export the bitumen under the previous contracts. However, Ukrainian banks resisted, they do not want to make transactions to the accounts of the Belarusian enterprise, fearing to fall under the restrictions as well.

“Now we are, in fact, looking for a bank that will not be afraid to transfer money. But so far it has been ineffective, because no one wants to take risks,” the market participants explain.

It is unclear whether it will be possible to supply bitumen from Navapolatsk under the guise of products from Mazyr, because many structures should be involved in such a scheme: from laboratories to customs. And if such a scheme is exposed, the consequences can be unpredictable for all its participants.

The U.S. sanctions against Naftan threaten to thwart the plans of Belarusians to make money in the summer on the large and premium Ukrainian market: not long ago Ukraine was preparing for war by freezing infrastructure projects, but now they have been restarted.

The high season is coming for the construction of roads and real estate, and the demand for bitumen is enormous.

Taking into account the fact that the supply of oil products from Russia to Ukraine is prohibited, all the cream in recent years has been skimmed by Belarusian companies, as a rule, state-owned ones. At the best of times, Belarus sold bitumen to Ukraine for $ 460 per ton, while in Russia it was $ 220 per ton. Last year Belarus sold 583 thousand tons of bitumen to Ukraine, of which 410 thousand tons were supplied from the Mazyr refinery, 173 thousand tons from Navapolatsk.

Given the actual cessation of Russian oil supplies to Navapolatsk, it seems unlikely that one refinery will satisfy all Ukrainian demand. The market dominated by Belarusians faces the risk of being redistributed among European players with more expensive products.

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