Government source said a reduction in the price of Russian gas depended on Ukraine ending cooperation on nuclear energy with a U.S. company.
The Ukrainian government’s attempts to secure a lower natural gas price from Russia took another turn this week after Russia said it may lend $5-6 billion to Ukraine to construct two nuclear reactors.
The move could strengthen the position in Ukraine of TVEL, a Russian company that has been the major supplier of nuclear fuel to Ukraine.
“We discussed co-operation on nuclear energy … A possibility is to lend $5-6 billion to construct the third and fourth reactors for the Khmelnytsky Nuclear Power Station,” Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said after a meeting with Mykola Azarov, his Ukrainian counterpart, in Moscow on Apr. 10, Reuters reported. The two prime ministers also discussed lowering the price Ukraine pays for Russian gas, which is crucial to help the government balance the budget and would boost the key chemicals and steel industries.
The U.S. has praised Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s recent announcement in Washington that his country would get rid of all its stockpile of highly enriched uranium by 2012. But some are worried that Kyiv’s new leadership could win lower gas import prices by simultaneously derailing efforts to diversify away from Russian nuclear fuel supplies, foremost by cutting out future shipments from an American company. The Segodnya daily cited government sources as saying a reduction in gas price depended on Ukraine ending cooperation on nuclear energy with the U.S. company Westinghouse.
Nuclear fuel produced by Westinghouse was inserted into a nuclear power plant in Ukraine for the first time last week as part of a U.S. government-backed initiative to help Ukraine diversify its fuel supply. “The loading of such a significant volume of Western-fabricated nuclear assemblies into a Ukrainian nuclear power plant marks a significant milestone in the development of reliable and diverse international fuel supply efforts,” said Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Warren Miller. “This milestone allows for further cooperation between the U.S. and Ukraine in civil nuclear energy.”
