Russia's Gazprom natural gas monopoly says Ukraine's national joint stock company Naftohaz Ukrainy is blocking the activity of RosUkrEnergo, which is a monopoly supplier of natural gas to Ukraine, Sergey Kupriyanov, an official representative of Gazprom, said in Russia's Echo of Moscow radio interview.
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“Naftohaz is blocking the activity of RosUkrEnergo while not allowing them to take up from underground storages the gas that must be used for export operations… Neither the old, nor the new patterns are effective… The Ukrainian party is preventing,” he stated. On top Kupriyanov said Gazprom was ready to continue the negotiations with Ukraine on conclusion of a gas supply contract, but there was no reply from Naftohaz Ukrainy by the time. As Ukrainian News reported, Ukraine guarantees uninterrupted transit of Russian gas to European countries. 50% of RosUkrEnergo belongs to Gazprom, 45% to Ukrainian businessman Dmytro Firtash, and 5% to another Ukrainian, Ivan Fursin. Gazprom fully stopped the supply of natural gas to Ukraine on January 1. On December 31, Gazprom said a new round of talks with Naftohaz Ukrainy on gas supplies in 2009 was a failure. Ukraine proposes that Russia increase the price of its natural gas for this country by USD 21.5 to USD 201 per 1,000 cubic meters, and the transit rate by USD 0.3 to USD 2 per 1,000 cubic meters pumped over 100 kilometers. Gazprom proposed that Naftohaz Ukrainy buy its natural gas at USD 250 per 1,000 cubic meters from 2009. Naftohaz Ukrainy said in the evening on December 30 that it had transferred USD 1.5228 billion to repay its gas debt in full. RosUkrEnergo confirmed that it had received the sum, saying that Naftohaz Ukrainy still owes USD 600 million in fines. |
