The average annual price of Russian gas for Ukraine in 2016 could be about $207-208 per 1,000 cubic meters / Photo from kievvlast.com.ua
Ukrainian Energy and Coal Industry Ministry Volodymyr Demchyshyn announces that the ministry projects the price of Russian gas for Ukraine in the first quarter of 2016 at $210 per 1,000 cubic meters.
"We expect it to be about $210," he told reporters before an Energy Headquarters meeting on Friday.
He said that he expected that the average annual price of Russian gas for Ukraine in 2016 would be about $207-208 per 1,000 cubic meters. The price may go down as the target price of gas from Europe next year is set at $175-180 per 1,000 cubic meters, he added.
Demchyshyn earlier reported that the Ukrainian authorities planned to agree conditions of deliveries of Russian gas and its price for Ukraine in the first quarter of 2016 until December 20, 2015.
Ukraine by October 31 had bought the entire amount of 2 billion cubic meters of natural gas it contracted from Russia's Gazprom at a price of $227 per 1,000 cubic meters under the trilateral Brussels agreements. Since November 1, Ukraine had reduced Russian gas purchases by dozens of times, but NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine transferred $64 million to Gazprom as prepayment for further gas supplies.
By the morning of November 15, Naftogaz had pumped out the prepaid amounts of Russian gas and it neither transferred any further prepayment nor placed a bid for new gas purchases.
Naftogaz CEO Andriy Kobolev earlier said that Ukraine would have done without Russian gas this heating season and the following ones if Russia had decided to stop selling gas to Ukraine.