Ukraine pays Russia 850 mln USD for November gas supplies

Ukraine's state-run Naftogas has paid 850 million U.S. dollars to Russian gas giant Gazprom for natural gas supplies in November, 18 percent less than in October, the Naftogas said on Monday, according to Xinhua.

Ukraine bought around 1.97 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia in November at the price of 430 U.S. dollars per thousand cubic meters, it said.

Since the beginning of the year, Ukraine has imported over 10 billion dollars worth of Russian gas.

Ukraine is mulling to reduce natural gas imports from Russia next year to 20 billion cubic meters from around 27.5 billion this year.

Under a 2009 contract between Naftogas and Gazprom, Ukraine is obliged to import not less than 52 billion cubic meters of gas per year from Russia.