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Monday, 01 December, 2008, 23:10 GMT | more >>

Ukraine 'siphoning off Europe's gas'



By Upstream staff 

Russian gas giant Gazprom said today it had been warned by Ukraine that it is taking gas from the transit pipelines to Europe to compensate for lower supplies for its domestic needs.

Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov told Reuters the volumes Ukraine planned to take from transit pipelines today amounted to 60 million cubic metres per day.

"This is the volume that European consumers won't get," he said.

He added that Gazprom's observers had not registered lower exports to Europe so far.

Ukraine was receiving 70 MMcmd from yesterday, 50% of usual levels, after Gazprom cut supplies in a debt dispute.

Gazprom's supplies to Europe had been running at around 360 MMcmd this week.

The European Union's executive said Ukraine has not informed the Commission of any significant cut in gas supplies resulting from the dispute with Gazprom.

"As far as we are concerned, we have no further information from the Ukrainians. We are in contact regularly and as far as we have been told, supply has not been affected in any substantive way," a Commission spokesman told Reuters.

Earlier today Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko pledged that the country would stand by its obligations to export Russian gas to Europe and remain a "reliable partner".

"We will not stray one iota from our obligations in terms of exporting natural gas to European countries," she told a regular Cabinet meeting.


Wednesday, 05 March, 2008, 09:57 GMT  | last updated: Wednesday, 05 March, 2008, 11:06 GMT

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