National joint-stock company Naftogaz Ukrainy seeks to resume active imports of natural gas to pump it into underground storage facilities in the first ten days of July, Naftogaz Head Andriy Kobolev has said.
“I think that this will be the first ten days of July,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the Ukraine Energy Conference in Kyiv on Thursday.
He said that at present the company is holding active negotiations both with western agents and Russia’s Gazprom about the gas price.
Kobolev added that initially the company intends to buy gas using own funds and after July 20 the funds of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will be used.
He also said that the company reached an agreement with the EBRD that some gas will be bought from Gazprom, while earlier the EBRD provided the financing to buy gas only from the western direction.
“The recent agreement we managed to achieve with the EBRD foresees that a part of the funds could be used to buy gas from the east as well,” he added.
Kobolev said that the holding seeks to get a $500 million loan from the World Bank to buy gas this autumn.
