Belarus shuts down pipeline in reply to Russian ban on meat imports

Belarus' emergencies ministry has shut down a major Russian diesel pipeline to Latvia's Ventspils, it said Tuesday, citing failures by the pipeline owners to fix numerous deffects that could lead to leaks, Reuters reports.

The closure will probably extend an already long list of Russia-Belarus trade rows over the past months, which has included disputes over gas arrears and dairy products amid Minsk's rapproachement with the West and chilly ties with its former top ally, Moscow.

Russia ships around 10 million tonnes of diesel per year to Ventspils via the territory of Belarus but plans to suspend those flows once it expands its own diesel export facilities on the Baltic Sea.

“It was unexpected,” said Vladimir Nazarov, first vice president of refined-product pipeline operator Transnefteprodukt. He said the pipeline has been on regular four-day maintenance since June 16, when his firm received an order not to resume flows indefinitely.

Belarusian emergencies ministry’s spokesman Vitaly Novitsky said the company’s slow repair work was to blame for the full closure, because the firm had done little to fix problems since accidents twice forced the pipeline’s closure in 2007.

“As far as we know, the owners are already proceeding with large-scale, defect-fixing operations. As soon as the most dangerous defects are fixed, the flows will resume,” Novitsky said.

In a separate development, Russia’s animal and plant health watchdog said in a statement Tuesday that it had banned imports of meat products from two plants in Belarus.

In another statement, it ordered its regional divisions to increase inspections of meat and dairy products from some 40 Belarussian firms “to prevent imports dangerous in the veterinary and sanitary sense.”