Ukrainian debts for Russian gas caused Gazprom to reduce gas supplies to the Ukraine. On Tuesday 8:00 p.m. (Moscow time) the supplies were cut by 25% in addition to another 25%-reduction which took place on Monday which currently totals 50%.The spokesman of “Naphtogaz” Valentin Zemliansky confirmed this information and said that for several hours the Ukrainian gas-transport system will operate with decreased pressure.
The official representative of “Gazprom” Sergey Kuprijanov said that by Tuesday evening the negotiations had not been started. The only reaction of “Naphtogaz” was the statement with the threat to use its wide experience and to start unauthorized extraction of gas intended for European consumers.
The Ukraine thanks to its position of transit country supplied itself with the gas for account of consumers in Europe and exceeded not only its own limits but also extracted additional supplies of Russian gas to Europe. As of 25th of January the excess of gas consumption by the Ukraine was 80 million cubic meters per day.
However “Naphtogaz” informed about the prospects to take “appropriate and dissymmetric actions”. One of them can be the reduction of Russian gas transit to Europe.
“Gasprom” noted that after double reduction of gas supply there were no unauthorized gas extractions by the Ukraine. “European consumers receive gas as usually”, said Kuprijanov. The continuity of transit supplies through the Ukraine is controlled in the territory of Russia, Romania and Slovakia, thus gas volume is checked as on the entrance so on the exit from the Ukrainian gas-transport system. At the same time Kuprijanov
said that independent inspectors still do not have access to gas-measuring units in the Ukraine.Brussels is keeping silence as well and until now no EC country informed about the reduction of supplied gas volumes. Nevertheless “to make coordinated response concerning current situation” EC decided to convene an extraordinary meeting of European Union coordination group.
The confrontation between the Ukraine and Russia is going on and nobody knows what the end of it will be.
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