Sitting tight: Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko
Kiev aims to cut gas order
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said today Ukraine will buy much less gas from Russia next year and will disregard any "aggressive" statements on the issue that has led before to rows and supply cuts to Europe.
Moscow and Kiev argued over gas prices and supplies last January leading to a three-week standoff and gas cuts affecting hundreds of thousands of Europeans.
This has made the European Union, which receives about 20% of its gas from Russia via Ukraine, extremely wary of a repeat "gas war" between the two countries, a Reuters report said.
Under a deal ending the dispute, Kiev agreed to import 42 billion cubic metres of gas this year and, according to President Viktor Yushchenko's office, 52 Bcm next year.
But Ukraine, the single largest country customer of Russia's gas export monopoly Gazprom, has been caught in the middle of a deep recession and requires far less gas.
"This (2010 imports) will be significantly less than in previous years because we have less need for natural gas," Reuters quoted Tymoshenko as saying.
The ex-Soviet country imported 49 Bcm of gas last year at a cost of $8.6 billion. This year, Tymoshenko has said 30 Bcm to 32 Bcm could be imported although one presidential official has suggested Ukraine needs only about 22 Bcm.
Tymoshenko has suggested before that the country could import next year 25 Bcm to 27 Bcm - almost half the amount it bought last year. Such a cut would leave a dent in Gazprom's revenues.
Neither Naftogaz or Gazprom have commented on import figures.
But Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller has been quoted as saying that Ukraine should stick to the January contract for next year.
"Let Ukraine fulfil its contractual obligations. This is what was written in the contract and so it will be," Russian news agency Interfax quoted him as saying yesterday.
Tymoshenko reacted angrily to his statement, saying: "I want no reactions to any aggressive statements. Ukraine, despite the crisis, is settling the bills for natural gas on time..."
Officials have said the September gas bill amounted to about $400 million, although even that payment was "not easy", Tymoshenko said yesterday.
If Ukraine does buy about 30 Bcm in total this year, it would face a bill of on average $1 billion per month in the last quarter.