The chief executive officer of Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state-owned natural gas company, said Thursday he couldn’t authorize paying Russia for March gas supplies because of a sharp drop in the amount of gas delivered by OAO Gazprom since Feb. 22. Russia has threatened to cut off gas supplies to Ukraine for nonpayment but Andriy Kobolyev said in a telephone interview from Kiev that Gazprom had been delivering 42 million cubic meters of gas daily to Ukraine, instead of 112 mcm as had been contracted. This was in breach of the gas-supply agreement signed on Oct. 30 in Brussels and meant he couldn’t responsibly authorize a prepayment to Gazprom for March gas deliveries. “There […]