bykvu.com
National oil and gas holding Naftogaz of Ukraine expects that, following the decisions of the Stockholm Arbitration Chamber on the two contracts (for the purchase and transit of gas), the company will be able to net penalties with its opponent, the Russian gas monopoly Gazprom, that’s according to Naftogaz CEO Andriy Kobolyev.
Commenting to one of Ukraine’s TV channels on the report that Naftogaz must pay Gazprom $20 million in fines and penalties as a result of non-payment of $2 billion to the Russian side, according to the first award of the Stockholm Arbitration Chamber, Kobolyev said: "We need to return this money, but we hope to do this through netting [of penatlies] in the transit case," adding that Gazprom is charged with similar penalties and fines as part of the litigation regarding the transit contract.
"Same penalties and same interest are charged upon our requirements on a transit contract. This is a symmetric situation. Netting will depend on how much money we can get," the Naftogaz CEO said.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine, in the person of Naftogaz, has sued Russia's Gazprom in the Stockholm Arbitration Chamber over the two contracts: on the transit of Russian gas to the EU and Ukraine's purchase of Russian gas.
On December 22, 2017, Naftogaz received the final award of the Stockholm Arbitration, which included the value of both parties’ claims. According to the company report, the Arbitration satisfied all demands put forward by the Ukrainian side: it lowered the price of gas that was bought from Gazprom in the second quarter of 2014, by 27.4% - to $352 per 1,000 cubic meters; rejected demands of the Russian side on the "take or pay" principle worth $56 billion; and reduced the volume of gas that Naftogaz will be obliged to buy from Gazprom in 2018-2019, from 52 to 5 billion cubic meters per year. Also, Naftogaz shall not pay for the gas that Gazprom supplied to the occupied areas of eastern Ukraine.
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On December 26, 2017, deputy head of Gazprom's management board, Alexander Medvedev, claimed that due to Naftogaz’s failure to pay its debt for the purchased according to the Stockholm Arbitration award, a daily $600,000 penalty is imposed. In response, the Ukrainian company noted that Gazprom was charged daily some $1-3 million in penalties on the gas transit contract.