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Prime Minister Mykola Azarov on Sept. 8 reiterated that any joint venture between Ukrainian and Russian state-managed energy monopolies must be based on market mechanisms. Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has said he insists that market mechanisms be used when setting up a joint venture between Russia's gas giant Gazprom and Ukrainian energy company Naftogaz Ukrainy.

"The prime minister's position remains unchanged: absorption or a merger [between Gazprom and Naftogaz] is out of the question. What is in question is discussion of market mechanisms for setting up an efficient joint venture, in which the parties would have equal rights and whose interests would be equally protected," Azarov's spokesman, Vitaliy Lukyanenko, told Interfax-Ukraine on Wednesday.

Earlier on Wednesday, Ukrainian Fuel and Energy Minister Yuriy Boiko said that the unification of Naftogaz Ukrainy and Gazprom is possible only if it meets Ukraine's national interests.

"The position of our president is that any unification should be conducted on a parity basis and should meet the national interest," Boiko told journalists on Wednesday, when asked about the possible merger of the two gas companies.

As reported, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller announced on Tuesday that Ukraine and Russia have discussed which companies could evaluate the gas transport system of Ukraine and which Russian gas fields could be included in a future joint venture.

According to Miller, the Ukrainian side has already named a range of companies that could be involved into this work.

This spring, the Russian leadership proposed the unification of Gazprom and Naftogaz into a joint venture on a parity basis, which could include extraction and gas transporting assets from the Ukrainian side, and gas fields of the same value from the side of Gazprom.

Gazprom has already submitted a list of gas fields that could be included in the joint venture.