Russia and Belarus announced a last-minute deal on gas prices on Monday, moments before Moscow was to start cutting off supplies with potential disruption for customers in Europe.
Belarus Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky arrived at Russian gas monopoly Gazprom's Moscow headquarters barely 30 minutes before Sunday's midnight deadline to sign the deal.
Under the accord, Belarus agreed to pay Gazprom $100 per 1,000 cubic meters of natural gas, up from the $46 ex-Soviet Belarus has been paying until now.
Gazprom had threatened to cut supplies to Belarus from January 1 if a deal on new gas prices to its neighbor was not reached by midnight. Minsk said it would retaliate by halting Russian gas crossing the country on its way to Western Europe.
"A mid-term agreement was reached on gas prices to Belarus and on transit shipments to Europe," Gazprom boss Alexei Miller told a news briefing early on Monday.
Russia supplies around a quarter of Europe's gas demands and pumps 20 percent of this amount through Belarus.
The gas row revived memories of a similar dispute with ex-Soviet Ukraine exactly one year ago which briefly disrupted Russian deliveries to Europe and shook confidence in Russia's reliability as an energy supplier.
(Reuters, 31/12/06)