“It all depends on Ukraine. I believe that from our side we are practically ready to do everything that we agreed on in regard to this packet. We’ll wait for a reaction from Ukraine in the next few days when everything becomes clear,” Novak told journalists.
The “winter gas packet” is due to be sent to the Russian government for approval soon.
“First, the three parties [Russia, Ukraine, EU] need to agree during the trilateral consultations, then we’ll be able to talk about the next steps: putting it on the government’s agenda,” Novak said.
Earlier, Novak said the next trilateral gas talks were scheduled to take place in Berlin on October 2-3.
In June, Russian gas giant Gazprom introduced a prepayment system for gas deliveries to Ukraine over Kiev's refusal to pay off its gas debt that currently is in excess of $5 billion.
Gazprom's head, Alexey Miller, said that Russia insisted that Ukraine pay $2 billion of its total debt in October and another $1.1 billion by the end of the year.
Ukraine's Minister of Energy Yuri Prodan said that Ukraine would first make an advance payment of $1.9 billion for the future delivery of five billion cubic meters of gas and then pay another $1.5 billion, as part of the debt, at the end of October, followed by $800 million in November and December.
The European Union has repeatedly emphasized the importance of trilateral gas talks, fearing possible troubles with gas transit to Europe via Ukraine.
(RIA Novosti) 30/9/14
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ReplyDeleteATYRAU /Kazakhstan/, September 30. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia is ready to restart natural gas supplies to Ukraine, if Kiev makes a partial $2 billion debt repayment and prepays for the new supplies, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Tuesday.
“On our part, we are practically ready to do everything on a package we have agreed upon. We’ll wait for a reaction from the Ukrainian side in the coming days,” Novak said in response to a question about the possibility of signing a gas agreement already this week as part of consultations between Russia and Ukraine with the EU’s mediation.
The Russian energy minister said Ukraine is ready to repay $3.1 billion in debts for Russia’s natural gas.
“They [Ukrainians] calculated this sum at the price, which they devised - $268.5, at the virtual price,” Novak said.
According to Gazprom’s data, Ukraine’s debt for natural gas supplied to the ex-Soviet republic totaled about $5.296 billion as of August 1, 2014 (excluding debts under “take or pay” contractual obligations), including $1.451 billion owed for supplies in November-December 2013 and about $3.845 billion for April-June 2014.
The Russian energy minister also said that the International Monetary Fund had already provided money to Ukraine for debt repayment.
“We are talking about $1.9 billion, which is the cost of 5 billion cubic meters of gas, which they [Ukrainians] want to receive as a minimum volume and have to make a prepayment while $3.1 billion should be paid in two tranches [as debt repayment],” the Russian energy minister said.......................http://en.itar-tass.com/economy/751985