Purchase of gas by Naftogaz from Gazprom depends on proposed price – Naftogaz head
The purchase of natural gas by Ukraine from Russia is a commercial issue and it mainly depends on the proposed price, Board Chairman of national joint-stock company Naftogaz Ukrainy Andriy Kobolev has said.
"Now this [negotiations with Gazprom] is a commercial process: if we agree, it is OK, if we don't agree, we will buy gas anywhere else… This would be a trivial commercial decision for us – to buy or not to buy," he said in an interview with Channel 5 TV broadcasted late on Monday.
He said that at the latest negotiations between Naftogaz Ukrainy and Gazprom on December 23 in Berlin Ukraine presented the conditions on which Naftogaz is ready to resume purchase of Russian gas in the first quarter of 2016.
"For example, in December Ukraine did not import Russian gas and now [the interview was taken before the resolution on the import duty for gas supplies to Ukraine in the first quarter of 2016 was published] the country is not importing. We're waiting if our commercial offers are taken positively," Kobolev said.
He said that the switch to the commercial relations with Gazprom was possible after the large expansion of reverse supplies for Ukraine from Europe.
As reported, the contractual price for the first quarter of the year would be $230 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas, the size of a discount on the contractual price, which is equal to the size of an export duty, will be $17.77 per 1,000 cubic meters. Therefore, the actual price offered to Ukraine is about $212.23 per 1,000 cubic meters.
