Naftogaz CEO Oleg Dubina went to Moscow for long-term agreement but returned with a bill.
Photo: Nikolai Lazarenko
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Ukraine Turned Out with Bill
The yesterday's negotiations of Ukraine and Russia on concluding a long-term agreement for gas supplies and its transit via Ukraine weren’t crowned with success. Naftogaz CEO Oleg Dubina proposed to shift to direct contracts with the prices fixed in 2009 through 2014, while Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller rebuffed that it wouldn’t happen until Naftogaz paid all debts to monopoly. The amount is above $700 million and Ukraine hasn’t executed by contracts another 12 billion cu meters to 15 billion cu meters of gas kept in its underground storage facilities.
Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and his Naftogaz counterpart Oleg Dubina held the negotiations yesterday, June 5, 2008. The plans of Ukraine were to deliberate on concluding a long-term agreement for gas supplies. Neither Gazprom nor Naftogaz has officially reported the results of those talks, but the sources with Gazprom said that Miller refused to discuss fixed prices for gas until Ukraine settles the current indebtedness of Naftogaz.
Another source close to negotiations specified on condition of anonymity that, as of May 30, Naftogaz owed to gas supplier, RosUkrEnergo (50 percent belongs to Gazprom, Dmitry Firtash owes 45 percent and Ivan Fursin has the remaining 5 percent), as much as $780 million (payments due for April and May). People in RosUkrEnergo confirmed that the current receivables due from Naftogaz exceeded $700 million as of June 5. Gazprom representatives declined to comment on the issue.
What’s more, the issue of Russia’s gas storage in underground facilities of Ukraine is yet to be sorted out. According to a source with Ukrgaz-Energo (subsidiary of RosUkrEnergo), there are 15.5 billion cu meters of gas belonging to “an unidentified owner” in the underground storage facilities of Ukraine and of this amount, Ukrgaz-Energo owns 3 billion cu meters and RosUkrEnergo owns more than 8 billion.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of June 06, 2008
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