Ukraine`s national energy holding Naftogaz of Ukraine until March 2017 does not intend to buy natural gas from Russia, company CEO Andriy Kobolev told a briefing Thursday.
”Most likely, until the end of winter, we will not buy gas from Russia,” he said.
Kobolev noted that in case of signing an additional agreement with the supplier of Russian gas, Gazprom, Naftogaz will be able in the future to consider the purchase of natural gas from Russia.
As UNIAN reported earlier, on December 9 following trilateral gas talks, Naftogaz CEO Andriy Kobolev said that Ukraine, Russia, and the European Commission failed to reach agreement on the so-called ”winter gas package.”
UNIAN memo. Ukraine pioneered the practice of signing tripartite protocols on gas supplies in 2014 in connection with the refusal to comply with the terms of the contract for the supply of fuel of 2009 and the appeal against the terms of the contract in the Arbitration Court in Stockholm.
The feature of such protocols is that they are signed by the three parties – Ukraine, Russia, and the European Commission. The document stipulates the terms, volumes of gas supplies, as well as the price for the whole period of validity of the document. Based on established practice, the effect of the protocol is limited to the end of the heating season – March 31.
Ukraine at the end of November 2015 refused to purchase natural gas from Gazprom. In 2015, Ukraine has doubled its natural gas imports from Europe as compared to 2014, up to 10.3 billion cubic meters. At the same time, it reduced by 2.3 times the purchase of hydrocarbons from the Russian Federation.
Also, according to the State Statistics Service, in 2015, Ukraine imported 16.4 billion cubic meters of gas, which is 15.8% less than in 2014.
