You're reading: Medvedev rules out disadvantageous extension of Gazprom’s gas transit contract with Kyiv

MOSCOW - Gazprom will not extend its transit contract with Naftogaz Ukrainy, expiring in 2019, if it is offered disadvantageous terms, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with the Slovenian Delo newspaper ahead of his visit to Ljubljana.

‘The contract on Russian gas transit via Ukraine will expire in late 2019, or more precisely, at 10 am on 1 January 2020. If it isn’t extended, there will be no legal framework for gas deliveries via Ukraine. History shows that there’s no sense in making forecasts about the future of the Ukrainian transit route. One thing is clear, though: we won’t extend the transit contract with Ukraine on disadvantageous terms,’ the Russian premier said’You are asking me what will happen in several years. Take South Stream: we reached an agreement on it with our European partners, completed the necessary preparations, and spent huge sums on it. We were ready to start laying the pipe across the Black Sea. What has come of it? Officials in Brussels decided that Europe doesn’t need South Stream. They refused to coordinate the construction of that large project of strategic importance to all sides. I have told your colleagues from Slovenian television that South Stream has fallen victim to Brussels bureaucracy. It showed us yet again that political considerations sometimes take the upper hand over logical and economic sense,’ the prime minister said.

‘Despite this, we are willing to further develop our energy cooperation with the European Union, building alternative routes to satisfy the growing energy requirements of European economies. The key project that is designed to ensure the uninterrupted supply of Russian gas to Europe, primarily south-eastern Europe, is Turkish Stream. We hope it will be built on schedule. There are grounds to think so,’ Medvedev said’We have taken the first step: on 22 June, Turkey issued a permit for the engineering surveys of the pipeline’s offshore section. We are coordinating an intergovernmental Russian-Turkish agreement. Soon we’ll start talks with the companies that will build the first section. The other countries that have confirmed their interest in the project, aside from Turkey, are Hungary, Greece, Macedonia and Serbia,’ the Russian prime minister said.