Ukraine hails gas victory, Russia puzzles

Russia’s Gazprom on Wednesday said it would keep intermediaries for some gas supplies to Ukraine, only hours after Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko called the decision to axe them a “great victory.”
The decision was part of an agreement reached on Tuesday after wearisome talks by the two countries’ presidents minutes before a Moscow-imposed deadline for Kiev to pay up or face supply cuts.
The agreement calmed Gazprom’s customers in Europe, who feared the row between the two former Soviet states could escalate into a repeat of early 2006, when a pricing dispute between Moscow and Kiev disrupted shipments to EU countries.
But on Wednesday, Gazprom’s chairman Dmitry Medvedev said Russia’s gas export monopoly might keep intermediaries in gas trade with Ukraine as other trading schemes would mean more expensive gas for Kiev.
“Most likely, we will have to keep an intermediary, because Ukraine is not able to sustain any other prices, except the prices for Central Asian gas, or $179 per 1,000 cubic metres,” Interfax news agency quoted Medvedev as saying in Novosibirsk.
Russia supplies to Ukraine a mixture of fuel from Russian fields and cheaper Central Asian gas through trader RosUkrEnergo, Gazprom’s 50/50 venture with two Ukrainian businessmen.
Another trader, a 50/50 venture between RosUkrEnergo and Ukrainian state energy firm Naftogaz, was sole distributor of imported gas on the domestic market.
Medvedev did not name RosUkrEnergo, but his remarks contradicted Gazprom’s Tuesday statement that all Russian-Ukraine gas contracts would be replaced by direct deals between Gazprom and Naftogaz.

Guardian