Gazprom Confirms New Russia-Ukraine Gas Crisis Averted
Energy | November 9, 2009, Monday
Gazprom has confirmed that Ukraine has managed to pay for the Russian October gas supplies. Photo by EPA/BGNES
Russian energy giant Gazprom confirmed Monday that Ukraine had paid in full for the natural gas it received from Russia in October.
On Friday, November 6, Ukraine’s Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, announced that the country had found the money to pay for the Russian gas supplies.
Her statement came after Russian PM Vladimir Putin warned of a potential termination of the supplies over Ukraine’s failure to pay; days later the Ukrainian company Naftogaz admitted it had trouble securing the funds. This has fueled fears in the EU about a repetition of the January 2009 gas crisis, which left many EU countries without Russian gas in the middle of the winter.
The Russian newspaper Komersant reported Monday that Moscow had submitted to the EU a draft of an early-warning energy memorandum, which it hopes will be signed during the EU-Russia meeting in Stockholm on November 18, 2009.
The document envisages a joint action plan in case Russian gas supplies for Europe are compromised by transit countries who divert them – something of which Russia has been accusing Ukraine.
Tags: Russia, Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko, Vladimir Putin, gas supplies, natural gas, gas, gas crisis, Gazprom, Naftogaz
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