REUTERS
Tripartite talks between Ukraine, the European Union and Russia over gas supplies are scheduled for next week, according to representative of Ukraine at the EU Kostiantyn Yeliseyev, who was speaking on Friday at the 8th Security Forum in Kyiv.
"Strengthening unity with the [our] European partners in the EU has produced results, we have a partial but positive solution of the so-called gas issue,” Yeliseyev said.
“Next week in Brussels, we will have tripartite gas talks in the format "Russia - Ukraine – EU.”
As UNIAN reported earlier, the meeting had earlier been scheduled for mid-April in Brussels, but was postponed. The head of Naftogaz of Ukraine Andriy Kobolev noted that Ukraine was aiming to reach a deal with Gazprom on prolongation of the "winter package" terms until spring 2016.
National Joint Stock Company Naftogaz of Ukraine and Russian state energy Gazprom signed an additional agreement to the gas supply contract, according to which the terms of "winter package" would remain in force until the end of June 2015.
Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said that Gazprom would not demand payment of penalties stipulated under the "take or pay" provision for gas supplies in Q2, 2015, although previously the head of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation Alexander Novak stated that starting from 1 April supplies of Russian gas to Ukraine would be carried out on the "take or pay" basis as stipulated by the contract dated 2009.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk noted that in 2015 Ukraine planned to purchase from Russia not more than 50% of the necessary import volumes of gas, "even when price for Russian gas would be lower than the European one".
In the period May 1-13, Ukraine imported 304 million cubic meters of gas, half as much as in April - 593 million cubic meters. The volume of gas imports from Russia during the first two weeks of May amounted to 250.1 million cubic meters.
In 2015, Ukraine intends to pump 13.879 billion cubic meters of gas into its underground gas storage facilities to avoid the shortages in 2015-2016 heating season, as well as to ensure uninterrupted transit of Russian gas to European countries.