According to the Head of State, every year, this topic becomes more important in terms of Belarus’ independence from imported energy resources. Some time ago, the President passed a number of resolutions to promote the use of local fuels. He visited enterprises, and a great many pilot projects were implemented.
Alternative to traditional power engineering
“Today’s session is a crucial event, because we’ll listen to the report on our achievements in this field, on progress in fulfilling resolutions and plans by the Government and local authorities,” noted the Head of State. “The meeting will focus on efficient economic management and cost improvement.”
The President stressed that much has been already achieved, with over 2 billion cubic metres of gas annually imported to Belarus replaced by local fuels. “However, this represents only one tenth of gas imports; we buy more than 20 billion cubic metres, spending about $3 billion annually. I’m convinced that we can and must do our best to reduce these expenses,” said the Head of State.
Mr. Lukashenko is aware of the irrational use of existing power-generating units and implementation of weak projects, saying, “It often happens because of lack of co-ordinated effort by agencies, local authorities, and the Government,” noted the Head of State.
The President asked a number of questions at the session. In particular, he wanted to know reasons for the inefficient use of Belarusian natural resources, ways of stepping up efforts in this field and decisions needing to be taken, alongside efforts to balance the planned increase in consumption of local fuel and energy resources and the additional amount of energy to be produced by the Belarusian nuclear power plant.
“A systematic and economically viable approach is needed to solve all issues connected with the use of local fuels. We’re no longer in the phase of making decisions and organising. We now need to objectively analyse the situation, revise our plans and decisions, and stepping up efforts to solve these issues,” underlined Mr. Lukashenko.
By Vladimir Velikhov
