Ukraine Seeks Amendment to Gas Agreement
By Kateryna Choursina
Bloomberg
MOSCOW — Ukraine is seeking an amendment to its accord with Russia to waive fines for buying less gas than contracted this year, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said in a letter to Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev. State-run Naftogaz Ukrainy may be unable to prepare for the heating season starting at the end of next year, potentially threatening “the reliability of gas shipments to Ukraine and transit to other European states,” Yushchenko said in the letter posted on his web site. The president wants to reduce the volumes of natural gas that Ukraine imports under the contract to a maximum of 30 billion cubic meters a year, the letter reads. Russia is open to talks with Ukrainian partners, President Dmitry Medvedev’s aide Sergei Prikhodko told reporters in Moscow on Thursday. “There is no sense in getting in depth analysis of” gas supply and transit, he said in the statement. “Commercial terms are not discussed at the level of heads of states.” Ukraine signed a 10-year gas supply and transit contract with Russia in January after Moscow-based Gazprom, which supplies a quarter of Europe’s gas, cut shipments to Ukraine for almost two weeks in a price dispute. The spat caused disruption in 20 European nations amid freezing temperatures. The contracts signed by the prime ministers of Russia and Ukraine in January envisage imports of 40 billion cubic meters by Ukraine this year, according to Bohdan Sokolovskyi, Yushchenko’s energy aide. The possibility of buying 20 percent less has not been documented, he said last week.
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