KHARKIV, Ukraine, April 21 (Reuters) - Russia onApr. 21 agreed to cut the price of its huge natural gas supplies to Ukraine in exchange for a 25-year extension of the lease of its Black Sea fleet on Ukraine's Crimean peninsula.
The announcement of the deal came after talks in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv between Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev.
"Our Ukrainian partners will receive a discount in the price of gas," Medvedev told journalists.
Referring to the complicated formula by which the pricing for gas to Ukraine is calculated, he said Russia would give Ukraine a $100 discount on gas if the price was higher than $330 thousand cubic metres (tcm), or 30 percent if the price was lower than that.
Yanukovich, who said the gas agreement was "unprecedented in the history of our relations", said Ukraine would undertake to import 30 billion cubic metres of gas in 2010, to rise to 40 billion in 2011.
The European Union has a stake in a new gas deal between Ukraine and Russia since it receives a fifth of its gas from Russia via Ukraine’s pipeline network.
Medvedev said the two sides had also agreed to extend for 25 years the lease of Russia’s Black Sea fleet which is based in Ukraine’s Crimean port of Sevastopol and is due to pull out in 2017 under a 1997 agreement.
"This will give a greater, better guarantee for European security in the Black Sea basin," said Medvedev. It was not immediately clear if the 25 period would run from 2017 or from this year.
The extension of the Russian fleet’s lease seemed certain to trigger criticism from the political opposition which has been insisting on a scheduled pull-out in 2017 as a matter of sovereignty.
UKRAINE-IMF DEAL
The new Ukrainian leadership needs a lower price for its huge gas imports from Russia to nail down the detail of a 2010 draft budget and secure a $12 billion credit line from the International Monetary Fund.
Fresh credit from the fund is seen by the new Yanukovich administration as vital for helping the economy to recover from the global downturn, which battered its main export industries, and to restore investor confidence.
Both leaders spoke in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv of turning a new page in relations between Ukraine and Russia after the deep chill when the pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko was in power.
The present gas agreement between the two countries foresees the ex-Soviet republic paying an average of $334 per tcm for its gas from Russia which the Ukrainian government says would have a disastrous effect on the economy.
"If the presidents today agree on an average price of $240 for the year, then … it will not be necessary to raise the price of gas in the communal sector and for the population," Deputy Ukrainian Prime Minister Sergey Tigipko Tigipko told reporters in Kiev.
The current 10-year agreement was signed early in 2009 by the previous Ukrainian government, which the Yanukovich administration has accused of leading the economy to ruin.
A pricing dispute between the two countries preceding the 2009 agreement left customers without gas for nearly three midwinter weeks.
A lower gas price will help Kiev balance its books and achieve budget targets that will unlock new credit from the IMF.
Tigipko said on Tuesday he would put a draft government proposal to the IMF in Washington this week for a new $12 billion programme over 2 1/2 years.
Ukraine had been on a $16.4 billion bailout programme from the fund. But that was suspended late last year because the previous administration of Viktor Yushchenko reneged on promises of fiscal restraint.
