Sat, Nov 09, 2024 | Jumada al-Awwal 8, 1446 | DXB ktweather icon0°C

Gazprom claims Ukraine won’t negotiate gas deal

PRAGUE, Czech Republic - The Russian gas monopoly Gazprom on Saturday accused Ukraine of boycotting negotiations on a natural gas contract dispute that has led to supply reductions in several European countries.

Published: Sat 3 Jan 2009, 7:31 PM

Updated: Wed 24 May 2023, 3:20 PM

  • By
  • AP

Russia and Ukraine also traded accusations over who was responsible for the drop in natural gas supplies to other European nations. Europe gets one-quarter of its natural gas from Russia, and 80 percent of that travels across Ukraine’s pipelines.

On Thursday, Gazprom cut off all gas supplies to Ukraine, saying Ukrainian officials had failed to pay a $2.1 billion bill. Ukraine’s state gas company Naftogaz made an 11th-hour payment of $1.5 billion, but Gazprom says Ukraine still owes more than $600 million in fines. Ukraine disputes the fines. The two nations are also at odds over the price Ukraine will pay for natural gas in 2009. Gazprom has proposed a price jump from $179.50 to $418 per thousand cubic meters.

At a news conference in Prague, Gazprom Deputy Chairman Alexander Medvedev accused Naftogaz representatives of not coming to Moscow for talks. He also said during the gas cutoff, Ukraine has been siphoning off natural gas from Russia’s shipments to other countries and also from underground storage.

“It’s absolutely unacceptable situation,” Medvedev told reporters. “We’re not negotiating,” he added. “There’s nobody from Naftogaz to negotiate (with).”

Naftogaz, however, denied that it was siphoning off gas intended for Europe. Spokesman Valentyn Zemlyansky said Saturday that on the contrary, Naftogaz was spending its own so-called technical gas to pump Russian gas to European consumers.

Medvedev spoke at the start of a tour that includes the Czech Republic, Germany, France and Britain to reassure European customers that Russia is a reliable energy partner.

He said Gazprom has been using alternative routes that don’t cross Ukraine but does not have enough capacity there to bring gas supplies to normal levels. As a result, countries including Romania, Hungary and Poland are suffering a reduction in supplies.

“We try to do our utmost to compensate for what Ukraine is doing...but the capacity to compensate has its limit,” Medvedev said.

Top Stories

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko’s energy adviser Bohdan Sokolovsky warned that the two countries had at most two weeks to reach an agreement before European countries would begin experiencing serious interruptions in gas supplies.

In Prague, the Czech Republic, which holds the EU rotating presidency, urged both sides to solve quickly the dispute and called “for an immediate resumption of full deliveries of gas to the EU member states.”

It was not the first time Russia has cut Ukraine’s natural gas supplies. In a 2006 dispute, Russia halted Ukraine’s shipments, which temporarily affected supplies to Europe and led to accusations that Russia was an unreliable energy source.

Many in the West viewed the 2006 cutoff as a Russian effort to punish Ukraine’s political leaders for their pro-Western policies.

Sokolovsky accused Moscow of once again exerting political pressure on Ukraine and of seeking to drive Naftogaz into debt by refusing the raise the transit fee Russia pays to use Ukraine’s pipelines.

“It is obvious that his is political pressure on Ukraine,” Sokolovsky said. “This is pure politics.” Medvedev rejected the claim, saying the gas contract dispute was caught up in the political fight between Ukraine’s prime minister and its president. Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko are bitter political rivals.



Next Story