Kyiv is ready to resume gas talks with Russia and the European Commission, Ukrainian Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Yuriy Prodan, who arrived in Brussels to hold consultations with European Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger, said.
“We are ready to continue these consultations and talks at any
moment,” Prodan told reporters ahead of his meeting with the European
commissioner.
The issue of trilateral talks should become one of the topics of today’s consultations with Oettinger, Prodan said.
It has been reported that Ukraine, Russia and the EU started trilateral talks on conditions of gas supplies in early May 2014.
Russia demanded Ukraine pay debt for the gas supplied to Ukraine
since November 2013. Kyiv repaid part of the debt for gas supplied in
February-March 2014 worth a total of $786 million. At the same time,
Kyiv said it was ready to repay the rest of the debt after the gas price
issue is resolved.
In particular, Kyiv insisted that the price for gas supplies to
Ukraine should not exceed $268.5 per 1,000 cubic meters, while Russia’s
Gazprom demanded Kyiv pay $485 per 1,000 cubic meters.
Trilateral talks stopped in mid June with no result reached and Gazprom stopped gas supplies to Ukraine on June 16.
Naftogaz Ukrainy and Gazprom have filed lawsuits to the Stockholm arbitrage to resolve the issue.
At the same time, the European Commission said it hoped to resume trilateral gas talks in the short term.
