Naftogaz denies receiving Gazprom's offer on settlement deal

Executive Director of NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine Yuriy Vitrenko says the company has not yet received an official offer from Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom regarding a settlement agreement.

"Naftogaz hasn't received any offers yet. If we receive them, we will carefully consider them. In particular, we can consider how Gazprom will fulfill the decision of the previous arbitration to compensate Naftogaz for the losses caused by Gazprom's failure to fulfill its obligations under the [gas] transit contract in 2009-2017. As a reminder, under this decision, Gazprom owes us more than US$2.8 billion," Vitrenko said on June 14.

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Earlier, Russia's Energy Minister Alexander said Gazprom was ready to consider signing a settlement deal.

Vitrenko also mentioned another condition for the consideration of the settlement agreement.

"We can also consider proposals for a new transit contract under the European rules, which will stipulate that compensation for Gazprom's failure to fulfill its contractual obligations in 2018-2019 will be included in the tariff in addition to full coverage of costs by the latter starting from 2020. Since this compensation is the subject of our claims in the new arbitration, we will not require this in the arbitration if this issue is resolved. At the same time, I note that Gazprom, not we, initiated the new arbitration with requirements that are actually contrary to previous arbitrations under our gas supply and transit contracts," he said.

Vitrenko drew attention to the fact that Gazprom is willing to extend the current transit contract with no obligations on the part of the Russian company in terms of transit volumes, which contradicts with the arbitration decision.

"As soon as Gazprom completes Nord Stream 2 and Turkish Stream (gas pipelines to supply gas to Europe bypassing Ukraine), it will halt [gas] transit shipments via Ukraine, and we will not receive money under the contract," Vitrenko said, commenting on the danger of such an option.

Moscow announced that the upcoming tripartite negotiations with participation of Ukraine, Russia and the European Commission might take place no earlier than September 2019, after the parliamentary elections and formation of a new government in Ukraine.