MOSCOW, Mar 2: Russia will stop exporting gas and oil to the former Soviet republics unless they provide financial support to the ailing industry, Russia's top energy official warned Monday, reports AP.

One of the former republics, Ukraine, decided Monday to ban gasoline sales to private car owners for the entire month of March because of already-poor fuel supplies, the ITAR-Taas news agency reported. The government order Is intended to preserve fuel for farmers.

Russian Fuel and Energy Minister Yuri Shafrannik said oil production was expected this year to plummet to 340 million metric tons (374 million short tones), or 55 million metric (60 nflllion short tons) less than last year, the Interfax news agency reported.

Officials have blamed the fall in production on outdated equipment, waste and economic chaos following the Soviet Union's collapse.

Shafrannik told a two-day conference on energy cooperation between the former Soviet republics held in the

Siberian city of Surgut that Russia needs 240 million metric tons (264 million short tons) of oil just to satisfy its own annual needs.

He said that while Russia fully met Its fuel export obligations to the former Soviet republics last year, they had supplied only 10 ptr cent of the goods agreed on in exchange.

Oil and gas supplies to the former Soviet republics calculated at world prices would have amounted to 6.5 billion dollar last year, he said, adding that the former Soviet republics owed Russia 1.8 trillion

rouble (about three billion dollar) for fuel supplies.

ITAR-Tass said Russia will decide whether to cul off gas supplies to Ukraine at the conference in Surgut, which Is In Tyumen, Russia's biggest oil-producing region.

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