Naftogaz to Resume Gazprom Purchases from March

Naftogaz Ukraine plans to begin purchasing gas from Gazprom next month, as reported by the Head of the board of the Ukrainian company, Andrei Kobolev, the agency UNIAN reports. 

"We held several rounds of negotiations. The company hopes to implement the decision of the Stockholm arbitration relating to the contract of sale, possibly within a month. We hope that this will give us an opportunity to start gas purchases from Gazprom in March this year," Kobolev explained. 

The official representatives of the Head of Gazprom, Alexei Miller and Sergey Kupriyanov, told RBC (RosBiznesKonsalting - a large Russian media group headquartered in Moscow) - that the company needed to "implement the outcome of Stockholm in the contract in order to sign an agreement".

Gazprom and Naftogaz have been litigating in Stockholm arbitration since 2014. The reason was the contracts for gas supplies, concluded in 2009. "Gazprom" claims that Ukraine has received gas in periods from 2012 to 2014, and in some parts of 2015 and 2016. Naftogaz asked the court to review the gas prices, return the overpayment and cancel the ban on the further resale of gas. 

In December 2017, the Stockholm arbitration concluded that the Ukrainian company has no right to review prices for gas received from May 2011 to April 2014. The court ordered Naftogaz to pay Gazprom $2 billion for the gas already supplied. Under the court's decision, the Ukrainian side should also purchase $5 billion cubic meters of gas annually from Russia. The take and pay condition (annual payment of the minimum volume of gas) is still valid.

By Dimitri Dolaberidze