Information Department of PJSC Gazprom commented on the statement of Yuriy Vitrenko, Chairman of the Board of NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine, on the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine after 2024.
“We got acquainted with the statement of the Chairman of the Management Board of Naftogaz of Ukraine Yuriy Vitrenko. Please note that no one offered Ukraine to buy Russian gas. The comments of Alexei Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, are addressed to our partners from the EU countries, primarily German ones. We are talking about the volumes of transit through Ukraine after 2024 in accordance with the new volumes of purchases of Russian gas by companies from the EU countries under new contracts. And that in this regard, we are also concerned about the decarbonization of the European Union's economy, ”Gazprom said.
Earlier in his comment on July 22, Miller expressed his readiness to continue transit through Ukraine if European buyers want to receive gas via this particular route (taking into account its price, competitiveness and environmental burden compared to other routes).
“Issues of new volumes of gas purchases from Russia for transit through the territory of Ukraine should be resolved on market conditions and at market prices. For the volume of new purchases of Russian gas via the Ukrainian route, in total above the current transit obligations, Gazprom is even ready to increase the volume of transit through Ukraine, "added the head of the oil and gas company.
In turn, the head of Naftogaz of Ukraine, Vitrenko, saw in Miller's comments about the prospects for continuing transit through Ukraine after 2024, an offer to buy gas from Russia and out of habit rejected it.
Proposals to preserve transit through Ukraine in exchange for unfavorable purchases of Russian gas for our country are unacceptable, he said on the air of the program " Ukraine Today "on the TV channel" Ukraine 24 ".
“First, this (statement by Alexei Miller) can be combined with previous statements by Putin, which in fact is that they want Ukraine to negotiate directly with Russia. But these agreements, and Putin hinted at it directly, included the import of Russian gas. And it has always been the case that the Russians insisted that we buy a lot of Russian gas at a price that is significantly higher than the market price. And the consequence of all this was that we paid on average $ 5 billion more for Russian gas than we received for transit, ”Yuriy Vitrenko noted.
He stressed that Ukraine will not accept such discriminatory proposals. Vitrenko also called for a sober assessment of the reliability of any promises from the Russian Federation.
“Russia guaranteed us security within the Budapest Memorandum. We do not need the Budapest Memorandum-2. We cannot believe any guarantees of Russia after they have all the guarantees ... in a very cynical way they simply forgot about them, made a military invasion of Ukraine, "Vitrenko summed up.
Thus, the parties identified the starting positions in the upcoming negotiations on the continuation of the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine to the European Union. The negotiations promise to be very tense, since Russia will already supply additional volumes of fuel to Germany via Nord Stream 2 in 2024, while Ukraine will need billions of hryvnias to modernize the existing gas transportation system to meet the high environmental standards of the EU.
