Category: Ukraine

Ukrainian Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn BRUSSELS—The European Union should share the cost of filling Ukraine’s natural-gas storage if it wants to prepare for worst-case scenarios next winter, the country’s energy minister said in an interview, highlighting a potential clash in coming negotiations between the EU, Kiev and Moscow. An EU-mediated deal that helped maintain gas supplies to Ukraine and the rest of Europe during the winter expires at the end of March. The comments by Volodymyr Demchyshyn, a former investment banker who took office in December, underline how difficult it will be to reach a follow-up agreement that ensures deliveries over the summer and beyond. About half of the EU’s gas imports from Russia pass through Ukraine. Mr. Demchyshyn also warned that the government in Kiev might decide to cut off shipments to regions controlled by pro-Russian separatists because of a failure by local energy distributors to pay for […]

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By Gabriele Steinhauser in Brussels And Nick Shchetko in Kiev, Ukraine Russia’s energy ministry said Monday that Ukrainian gas company OAO Naftogaz won’t have to make advance payments for unauthorized gas deliveries to rebel-held regions in eastern Ukraine. Recent deliveries by Russia’s OAO Gazprom to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions will be "taken out of the equation" when calculating prepayments for Naftogaz, the ministry tweeted from its verified Twitter account. "This will be a matter of a separate reconciliation and separate negotiations," the ministry added. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak was in Brussels Monday for European Union-mediated talks with his Ukrainian counterpart. The talks followed complaints from Naftogaz that Gazprom had been supplying gas to rebel-held regions in eastern Ukraine and had reduced deliveries to the rest of the country. Russia has been backing the rebels. Naftogaz claimed that Gazprom was in breach of a supply deal between the […]

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Sign up for our daily Energy Newsletter Gas tap for Ukraine may close without additional payments, Russia’s energy minister says. (UPI Photo/Sergey Starostenko) MOSCOW, Feb. 27 (UPI) — The natural gas spigot could be closed for Ukraine as early as Tuesday unless it pays for more deliveries in advance, Russia’s energy minister said Friday. Russian energy company Gazprom confirmed it received $15 million from its Ukrainian counterpart, Naftogaz, which ensures gas deliveries until Tuesday . "They can also pay for Tuesday – it depends on them now," Energy Minister Alexander Novak said. "If they want gas, they have to pay." Gazprom in the winters of 2006, 2009 and 2014 cut gas deliveries through Ukraine briefly in response to contractual disputes with Kiev. That left downstream consumers in Europe short on natural gas supplies. The latest payment row coincides with ongoing skirmishes between pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine and government […]

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Ukraine’s army said it would begin pulling back heavy weapons from the front lines of the conflict in its eastern region on Thursday. WSJ’s Greg White reports. Photo: Getty MOSCOW—In the clearest sign yet that a cease-fire is taking hold, Ukraine’s army said it would start pulling back heavy weapons from the front lines of its 10-month conflict with Russia-backed militants. Ukraine announced the move Thursday after reporting two days of reduced shelling and no deaths among servicemen. The start of the withdrawal marks the second stage of an agreement struck two weeks ago, aimed at ending the fighting that has cost more than 5,000 lives and created the worst tensions between Russia and the West since the Cold War. Officials in Kiev said shelling was still taking place and expressed concerned that separatists want to continue recent advances and seize more territory, such as the industrial port city […]

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ENLARGE Naftogaz Chief Executive Officer Andriy Kobolyev said Ukraine had the funds available to make the payment to Russia’s Gazprom for March gas supplies, but wouldn’t say how much money had been set aside. Photo: Bloomberg News BRUSSELS—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 […]

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MOSCOW (AP) — Ukrainian gas company Naftogaz announced Friday that it had paid $15 million for another month of Russian gas, but Moscow says that the sum will only be enough for an additional day of deliveries. Interfax-Ukraine news agency quoted Naftogaz’s executive, Andrei Kobolev, as saying that the company had paid for gas supplies from Russia for the month of March. But a spokesman for Russian energy giant Gazprom said that the payment was only enough for one additional day of delivery if gas continues to be pumped to Ukraine at the current rate. Following a bruising dispute over prices and debt that raised fears of supply disruptions in Europe, Russia and Ukraine signed a deal in October requiring Kiev to pay in advance for gas shipments. President Vladimir Putin and other government officials warned earlier this week that Russia would cut off supplies to Ukraine by the […]

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ENLARGE A man boils water on an open fire in the town of Svitlodarsk in eastern Ukraine, where shelling has destroyed gas supply infrastructure. Moscow and Kiev are quarreling about who is responsible for supplying and paying for gas to Ukraine’s rebellious east. Photo: Associated Press BRUSSELS—The European Union is trying to convene a three-way meeting with the Ukrainian and Russian energy ministers to resolve the conflict over gas supplies to the separatist-controlled areas in eastern Ukraine. Speaking at a news conference in Brussels on Wednesday, European Commission Vice President for Energy Union Maros Sefcovic said he has proposed that the issues of supplies and the cost of gas for the rebel-held Donetsk and Luhansk territories in eastern Ukraine be treated independently of a winter gas supply package. That agreement between Moscow and Kiev was brokered by the EU in late 2014. “I believe that this question, of course, […]

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ENLARGE Gazprom Chief Executive Alexei Miller. He said Gazprom hasn’t received the latest prepayment from Kiev, and that only 219 million cubic meters—enough for two days of deliveries—remained of volumes already purchased. Photo: maxim shipenkov/European Pressphoto Agency The European Commission currently doesn’t expect a standoff between Russia’s and Ukraine’s gas companies to affect supplies to the European Union, a spokeswoman said Tuesday. “At the moment, gas flows to the EU are normal,” said Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, a spokeswoman for the EU’s executive. “We expect that the gas transit to the EU won’t be affected by the situation” in eastern Ukraine. The comment follows a warning by Russian state gas company OAO Gazprom that supplies to the EU were at a “serious risk,” after it said Ukraine had failed to make a payment for new shipments. Gazprom said that the remaining volumes that have already been prepaid would last for just […]

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MOSCOW — As Russia warned Ukraine on Tuesday that it could run out of natural gas within two days because of a dispute over payments, Britain said it was sending military trainers to aid Ukrainian forces while European diplomats labored to patch up a flagging peace agreement in eastern Ukraine . The warning by Aleksei B. Miller, the chief executive of Gazprom, the state-controlled Russian energy behemoth, illustrated how the hostilities between Russia and Ukraine are hardly limited to the battlefields in eastern Ukraine, where a cease-fire agreed to nearly two weeks ago has still not fully taken hold . Russia has long used its muscle as the region’s major energy supplier to wield political and economic influence, particularly in disputes with Ukraine and other former Soviet republics. A bitter feud over gas payments has been a subplot of the wider political dispute between Moscow and Kiev over the […]

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