Kyiv, July 3, 2014 – Ukrainian-Russian gas negotiation reached a stalemate, considers President of Kyiv institute of energy research Oleksandr Narbut. It was the statement he made during his media briefing in Ukraine Crisis Media Center.
In the expert’s opinion, Ukraine is to form a negotiation team, develop strategy of the talks and organize a gas crisis team – not in the way it has been established in the Cabinet of Ministers. According to the expert, this team is considering the issues of possible gas saving mode in autumn and winter period, fuel switching etc. «All this is a reflexive response, similar to the one when water or electricity has been cut off and you must learn where matches and candles are. It is not the strategic task government should be tackling right now. The President has to pay attention to solving this problem as well, for Russia is using energy weapon in full today, so level of threat in energy sphere is not less important for the future of Ukraine and its political and economic independence than military issues».
Oleksandr Narbut mentioned increase in reverse-flow deliveries from Europe as one of undoubted positive achievements, but he still could not not avoid criticism of the government at that: «Good news is that volume of natural gas import from Europe is being built up, slowly but surely this process is taking place. Joint import from Poland and Hungary amounted to 170 million cubic meters per month, this volume doubled in June (to 320 mln. cubic m.). Certainly it is far from the maximum which could be imported, because aggregate import capacity could amount to 630 million cubic meters. In other words, reverse-flow channels load does not exceed 50% as of today. There are also administrative hindrances for unrestricted gas supply from Europe. All the elements of administrative vertical structure are doing their best to prevent any trader from bringing gas in for consumption in Ukraine, regardless of the contracts signed. Though, European price differs considerably from our internal price. In the period from April to June some supply capacities has been lost and the responsibility fully rests with the ministry, government and management of national joint-stock company “Naftogaz”. Oleksandr Narbut expressed his hope for President Poroshenko to pay his attention to this problem and take steps to solve it. In the contrary case there will be no mitigation on the international partners’ side, who will surely raise this issue during 5th Energy Forum in Kyiv. They can be qualified as approach of unequal competitive access to the market in time when the country is in critical need».
