The formula of price for Russian gas is still disadvantageous to Ukraine despite a discount of $100 per 1,000 cubic meters, and Kyiv will ask the Russian partners to change the formula, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has said.
"We have an objective to revise the formula, which is extremely disadvantageous to us, and we are going to persuade our Russian partners of the need to do this," the head of government said while opening a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers in Kyiv on Wednesday.
"The fettering gas agreements signed by the previous government in January 2009 include a formula, which plans for a quarterly growth in price by about $25 per 1,000 cubic meters," he said.
"We bought gas at $330 per 1,000 cubic meters in the first quarter of this year, and the price grew each quarter by about $25, and so it would be about $390 per 1,000 cubic meters in the fourth quarter. This formula continues to exist, and this is a fact," Azarov said.
This price would mean a disaster for the Ukrainian economy and people, and only the agreement concluded between the new Ukrainian government and president in Kharkiv in spring, under which the price for gas was cut by $100, enables Ukraine "to make both ends meet," he said.
It was reported earlier that the last time Azarov declared his determination to urge Russia to revise the gas price was in early May this year. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin had said at the time that Russia did not see fit to revise the price formula.
Russian-Ukrainian gas contracts signed in January 2009 for the period up to 2020 stipulated that the price for gas exported to Ukraine be calculated using a formula taking into account fluctuations in prices for fuel oil (so-called mazut) and gas oil. Ukraine enjoyed a 20% discount in 2009.
The price for Russian gas imported by Ukraine increased to $305.68 from $208.12 per 1,000 cubic meters in the fourth quarter of 2009 and $198.34 in the third quarter of 2009.
The Kharkiv agreements grant a 30% discount on gas price for Ukraine, which however, cannot be more than $100 per 1,000 cubic meters.
These agreements reduced the price for Russian gas imported by Ukraine to $232.86 per 1,000 cubic meters in the second quarter of 2010, and it grew to $248.72 per 1,000 cubic meters in the third quarter of 2010.
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