Gazprom Hits Ukraine With New Demands

MOSCOW, Russia -- It is reported that Russian gas giant Gazprom last week made new demands against Ukraine, insisting the country must return 4 billion cubic meters of natural gas, posing a major challenge to Ukraine which may deplete its natural gas reserves.


Ms Yulia Tymoshenko prime minister of Ukraine, who spent five hours in talks with Mr Alexei Miller CEO of Gazprom last week at Boryspil airport after arriving from Moscow, said the new demands had surprised her government.

She said “It appears that the problems are significantly worse than has been assumed by the government.

Ukraine, besides cash, also owes billions of cubic meters of gas that must be returned in kind.”

Ms Tymoshenko said that Ukraine will clear USD 1 billion debt that had been owed by Naftogaz Ukrayiny, the national oil and gas company, for gas supplies delivered in November and December 2007.

Naftogaz already paid a total of USD 284 million against the debt over the past seven days in two installments of USD 178 million and USD 106 million.

Gazprom has been earlier estimating the overall debt at USD 1.5 billion, which included USD 1 billion for gas supplied in 2007 and USD 500 million for gas supplied so far this year.

Source: SteelGuru