Naftogaz to recover losses through court if Gazprom fails to fulfill gas transit obligations

Ukrainian Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko says National Joint-Stock Company Naftogaz of Ukraine will be able to recover losses through court if Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom fails to fulfill its contractual gas transit obligations by the end of 2019.

"We'll wait until talks between the two companies are over. However, if any of the parties, in this case it's Gazprom, evades its contractual obligations, Naftogaz will have every opportunity to go to court to recover the losses connected with Gazprom's failure to fulfill its gas transit obligations before the end of 2019," he said at a briefing in Kyiv on April 12.

Read alsoAnother lawsuit filed against Gazprom: Naftogaz set to enforce debtAccording to the minister, Gazprom is obliged to fulfill the contract for transit shipments of Russian gas via Ukraine, which was signed in 2009, taking into account a ruling by the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, since Russia's monopolist agreed to this way of the settlement of disputes at the stage of concluding the contract.

"Each of the parties to the contract must fulfill its obligations. There cannot be any objections, which Gazprom now raises, saying that 'we will not fulfill the transit agreement because we don't like the ruling by the Stockholm Arbitration. I want to remind that exactly this way of resolving disputes was signed by Gazprom when this contract was concluded," Petrenko added.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Gazprom lost a gas dispute with Naftogaz in the Stockholm arbitration court and was obliged to pay the Ukrainian company some $2.56 billion and supply up to 5 billion cubic meters of gas per year in 2018-2019 at prices in line with those at European gas hubs.

Despite the defeat, Gazprom announced plans to terminate the contract with Ukraine for the supply and transit of gas, and lowered the pressure in the gas transmission system (GTS), which complicated gas transit shipments to Europe and caused a temporary gas shortage in the GTS (March 2-3).

After the gas crisis was successfully addressed, the European Commission stated that Ukraine had fulfilled all its gas transit obligations.

Late in March, Gazprom officially notified Naftogaz it would not implement the arbitration award.