"Klaipėdos Nafta and Litasco, a company of the Russian oil group Lukoil, signed a contract on 30 August for the transshipment of 4 million tons of dark petroleum products until the second half of 2014. The contract was concluded for the purpose of handling Belarusian oil products. Therefore, any such doubts or statements have no grounds," Klaipėdos Nafta spokeswoman Indrė Milinienė told BNS on Monday.
Klaipėdos Nafta will continue to handle as many products from Belarusian refineries as it can, because this is one of its strategic operational priorities, she said.
Lietuvos Geležinkeliai said in a statement earlier on Monday that it discussed the prospects for and problems of freight transportation to Klaipėda during a meeting with Belarusian oil companies' top executives last Friday.
"The oil executives underlined their concern about Klaipėdos Nafta's refusal to accept Belarusian oil products starting 1 October. They said that being unable to supply their products to the Klaipėdos Nafta terminal, they would be forced to divert their freight flows to Latvian ports," the railway company said.
According to data from Lietuvos Geležinkeliai, more than 2.5 million tons of Belarusian oil refineries' products were shipped via Klaipėda as of 1 September, accounting for nearly 22 percent of the total amount of oil products transported by the railway operator since the start of this year.
Under contracts signed last year for 2012, Klaipėdos Nafta also provides services to Russia's Somitekno, Baltic Fuel Inc., a company of Singapore's Chemoil, Switzerland's Mercuria Energy Trading, and Russia's Gazprom Neft.
The terminal plans to reload around 8 million tons of petroleum products this year.
