In parliament on April 11 Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Yuri Prodan stated that Ukraine will file a lawsuit with the Stockholm Arbitration Court on behalf of Naftogaz Ukraine concerning the contract with Russia’s Gazprom in 2009, which Prodan argue was “unfair” and “politicized”.
“We have hired international
lawyers who have experience working with companies that have filed claims in
the Stockholm court against Gazprom,” Prodan said, adding hopefully that these
lawsuits in fact did not reach the arbitration stage, but rather were resolved
peacefully.
Earlier in April, Russia decided to
raise the gas price for Ukraine from $285 per thousand cubic meters to $485 with
the justification that both the 2010 Kharkiv Accords that gave a $100 discount
and the Dec. 17, 2013 agreement with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych that
gave another $100 rebate had become null and void.
In 2013 Ukraine consumed 50.4
billion cubic meters of gas, according to the Ministry of Energy, of which it
imported 28.1 billion from Russia for $11 billion, 2 billion from Europe for $1
billion, and extracted domestically 20 billion.
Receiving gas from Hungary and Slovakia
Prodan added that Hungary is
now back in the running to sell gas to Ukraine. Hungarian Foreign Affairs
Minister Janos Martonyi said that after meeting with Ukrainian Deputy
Foreign Minister Daniel Lubkivsky in Budapest, all the necessary equipment to
start reverse supply is ready to go. Hungarian gas pipeline operator
Foldgazszallitas has said it was willing to pump up to 6 billion cubic meters
of gas to Ukraine annually.
Slovakia is another promising
source of gas reverse. Supplies could reach 7 billion cubic meters a year, said
Oleksandr Narbut, president of the Kyiv Energy Research Institute, on April 10.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk would like to receive as
much as 20 billion cubic meters of gas from Slovakia.
According to Narbut, there is no
technical reason why Slovakia cannot transit gas to Ukraine and the Slovakian
government has expressed a desire to do so. The issue is the Kremlin, “which is
using Gazprom to execute its political goal of ruining Ukraine,” Narbut said.
“Specifically, Gazprom is claiming that in its contract with Slovakia the
company has reserved the right to pipelines that send gas to Europe, and any
violation of the contract would incur heavy fines.”
The Russians are contradictory on
the technical possibilities of a reverse flow.
On April 9 Russia’s representative to the European Union Vladimir
Chizhov said that the reverse flow of gas from Europe to Ukraine is possible, Ukrainskyi
Tyzhden reports.
Slovakia has already started
technical preparations for organizing reverse supplies of natural gas from the
European Union to Ukraine, Slovakian Vice Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign
Affairs Miroslav Lajcak said at the Kyiv Security Forum on April 10. “So, there
are no grounds for accusations that we haven’t,” he added.
Four gas pipelines connect Ukraine
and Slovakia, which have a combined throughput capacity of 90 billion cubic
meters, while Ukraine has a total throughput capacity to Europe of 142.5
billion. Slovakia has a 50 billion cubic meter contract with Gazprom for sale
to Europe at stake.
Ukraine already imports some gas
from Poland and Hungary, just 2 billion cubic meters, according to Ukrainskyi
Tyzhden. Minister Prodan said earlier that reverse supplies would allow the
country to import 7-10 billion cubic meters of gas from Europe.
Narbut of Kyiv Energy Research
Institute said that with the lower demand for gas during the warm months,
current supplies and domestic production should be enough to get the country
through until the autumn. In the meantime, “Ukraine must do all it can to source
non-Russian supplies of gas and find ways to reduce gas consumption.”
Gas storing
In parliament on April 10 Yatsenyuk
admitted that while there should be 20 billion cubic meters in the underground
gas storage facilities of Naftogaz Ukrainy, the actual figure is just 7.2
billion, and he doesn’t know where the rest went. “I did not steal it,” he
said.
Russia says Ukraine owes $2.2
billion for gas taken as of April 9. Ukraine has not taken Russian gas since
April 1.
On April 10 Russian President
Vladimir Putin warned Europe that Russia was poised to halt gas supplies
to Ukraine, thereby endangering Europe, unless immediate action was taken to
resolve Kyiv’s unpaid bills, Financial Times reported, and that
Gazprom had a contractual right to force Ukraine to pay in advance for gas
supplies.
Kyiv Post business
journalist Evan Ostryzniuk can be reached at [email protected].
Photo for this story has been taken from Dyvys.
