According to data from the Statistics and Analysis Ministry, Belarus transported 14.2 million tonnes of oil in its trunk pipeline system in January-February 2008, 0.3 percent more than in the same period last year, news agencies reported. Russian oil companies supplied 3.95 million tonnes of crude oil to Belarusian refineries by pipeline and rail in the period, 60 percent more than a year earlier. Gas transportation on trunk pipelines increased 15.3 percent to 12 billion cubic metres in January-February. Belarus transports up to 80 million tonnes of Russia oil a year, most of it on Gomeltransneft’s section of the Druzhba pipeline system. The Novopolotsk segment of Druzhba has not been operating since August 2006 due to a breakdown on the Russian segment of the pipeline, which cut off crude oil shipments to Lithuania. Gomeltransneft’s Druzhba segment transported 81 million tonnes of oil in 2007, 1.25 percent more than in 2006. Russia annually ships 55 billion cubic metres of gas through Belarus on the Yamal Europe gas pipeline, as well as on Beltransgaz’s pipeline network. Meanwhile, the price of Russian gas for Belarus will not exceed USD 128 for 1000 cubic metres before the end of 2008, BelaPAN quoted Russian Ambassador Aleksandr Surikov as telling reporters in Minsk recently. The diplomat said that the price would increase by no more than seven percent compared with the beginning of the year when it was USD 119 for 1000 cubic metres. When asked to comment on recent remarks by Vasil Khrol, deputy state secretary of the Belarusian-Russian Union State, who said that the gas price for Belarus may be raised to USD 200 for 1000 cubic metres next year, Surikov said that the price would amount to 80 percent of “the Warsaw direction price” minus customs duties and some other fees. The ambassador said that he did not know what “the Warsaw direction price” would be in 2008. Under a five-year contract, signed between Gazprom and Beltranshaz on December 31, 2006, the price for Belarus was raised to USD 100 for 1000 cubic metres in 2007 compared with USD 46.68 in the previous two and a half years. The price is to gradually increase to the European market level by 2011. It is to be 67 percent of the level in 2008, 80 percent in 2009, 90 percent in 2010, and 100 percent in 2011. The Belarusian government is currently pushing for a review of the price formula set out in the contract as it insists on a lower price.