Minsk, Sept. 26 (Interfax) – Belarus imported 1.333 billion kW hours of electric power from Ukraine in January-August, which was 32.6% less year-on-year, according to a monthly Fuel and Energy Ministry monitoring report on its website.
Deliveries of electric power to Belarus represented 36.6% of Ukraine’s exports versus 77.8% in January-August of last year.
Where it was the main export to Belarus last year, this year it is roughly similar to the amount of electricity Ukraine exported to Hungary: 1.315 billion kW hours, or 36.3%, versus 226.5 million kW hours, or 8.9%, in 2010.
In all, Ukraine exported 3.639 billion kW hours of electricity in January-August, 43.3% more year-on-year, the report says.
Last year, Belarus was the main foreign consumer of Ukrainian electric power.
In 2011, roughly the same amount (31.3% of total exports) is being supplied to Hungary.
Ukraine suspended the supply of electricity to Belarus at the beginning of June over debts of $32.1 million for March-April.
The non-payment came about due to the crisis on the Belarusian currency market and Belenergo’s inability to buy currency for import settlements on the Belarusian forex and stock exchange at the official central bank rate.
Belenergo began to pay down its debt on July 1, and has fully paid off debt to Ukrinterenergo and some of its debt to Vostokenergo.
Previously, the Energy Ministry had said that the debt would be paid off during the first part of July.
During the first week in July, the government and central bank issued a joint resolution saying that settlements for imported electricity had been put on a list of prioritized critical imports, to pay for which the central bank would sell currency on the exchange.
Ukrainian companies have planned to deliver a record amount of power to Belarus – upwards of 2.4 billion kW hours.
More than half of that (1.5 billion kW hours) is going to DTEK, and the plan was for the rest to be exported by state enterprise Ukrinterenergo.
If these plans are realized, the volume of electric power exported to Belarus this year would be the most in the last two decades.
