KIEV, Oct. 18 - Ukraine will reverse its Odessa-Brody oil pipeline flow in the near future to start moving massive supplies of Venezuelan crude to Belarus, President Viktor Yanukovych said Monday.

The announcement was made after talks in Kiev between Yanukovych and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez, who seeks to increase supplies of Venezuelan crude to new markets in Europe.

“Today we ship this crude by railroad tanks, but in the near future will start moving the crude by oil pipeline,” Yanukovych said at a press conference with Chavez. “This is our plan, which we will do in our relations with Venezuela and Belarus.”

Odessa-Brody is currently moving about 4 million metric tons of Russian crude oil annually for exports via a Black Sea oil terminal Pivdenniy, near Odessa, and its reversal may hurt interests of some Russian oil companies, such as TNK-BP.

The reversal of the pipeline also reduces Russia’s oil supply monopoly in the region, especially for Belarus, which has been for decades relying only on Russian oil supplies to run its oil refineries and petrochemical industry.

Belarus started to look for alternative oil supplies after a dispute with Russia in January over oil import tariffs and supply volumes.

Yanukovych said the reversal of the pipeline will not hurt Russia’s interests and will not increase tensions between Ukraine and Russia.

“I never heard that Russia hampers solving this issue,” Yanukovych said. “We think that solving this issue for Belarus not contradicts Russian interests and not contrary relations between Russia and Ukraine.

The Ukrainian government last week announced it will make by the end of November a test-run shipment of 80,000 metric tons Venezuelan crude via Odessa-Brody to an oil refinery in Belarus.

The test-run will involve switching oil supplies between Odessa-Brody and Druzhba, another oil pipeline that is currently moving Russian oil to markets in Europe.

The test-run will show whether Ukraine can move Venezuelan crude via Odessa-Brody and than via Druzhba oil pipeline to Mozyr oil refinery in Belarus without hurting supplies of Russian oil that currently flows via Druzhba to the European Union.

Druzhba, or Friendship, is Ukraine’s major oil pipeline that has an annual oil transit capacity of 25 million metric tons. The pipeline moved about 15.5 million metric tons of Russian crude for exports in January through September, down 17.3% from 18.7 million metric tons shipped in the same period of the past year.

Chavez arrived in Kiev on Monday after traveling to Belarus, where he had agreed with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko over supplies of up to 10 million metric tons of crude/year to Belarus during the next three years.

The Venezuelan oil supplies to Belarus have been underway since May.

The shipments are made by oil tankers to a Ukrainian oil terminal in Odessa, after which the oil is moved by railroad tanks across Ukraine to Mozyr oil refinery in Belarus.

But Belarus has been seeking to supply greater volumes of crude and has pressed for using Odessa-Brody oil pipeline that would make these supplies much cheaper.

Meanwhile, as a further sign of increasing cooperation between Ukraine and Venezuela, Ukrainian companies will seek to start extraction of natural gas and oil in Venezuela.

“We agreed with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that Ukraine will start production of natural gas and oil in Venezuela,” Yanukovych said. “This issue will be among top priorities in bilateral relations.”

Ukraine’s national oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrayiny has earlier this year successfully extracted first 100,000 barrels (13,500 metric tons) of crude oil from Gharadig oil deposit at the Alam El-Shawish East block in Egypt.

This is the first overseas hydrocarbons extraction project ever carried out by the Ukrainian state energy company.

Alam El-Shawish East, which is located in Western part of the Egyptian desert, is thought to contain more than 73 million metric tons of crude oil, according to Naftogaz geological experts. (sb/ez)