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World|business|September 26, 2014 / 09:16 PM
Russia, Ukraine reach preliminary agreement on interim gas price

AKIPRESS.COM - gasprom Russia and Ukraine reached a preliminary natural-gas agreement, potentially ending a dispute that was set to disrupts flows during the coming winter, reports Bloomberg

Ukraine will pay $3.1 billion by the end of the year for previously delivered supplies, and Russia in return will provide at least 5 billion cubic meters of gas to Ukraine in the coming months, European Union Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said today in Berlin following talks with the Russian and Ukrainian energy ministers.

Under the deal, which each country’s government still needs to approve, Ukraine will pay $385 per 1,000 cubics meters for gas for the next six months. The agreement is at the price that Russia’s OAO Gazprom (GAZP) had said was its final offer and at the highest level the EU had previously said should be paid.

The EU, which depends on Russian gas piped through Ukraine for about 15 percent of its demand, has been trying to broker a deal to maintain shipments since May. After the last round of three-way talks failed in June, Russia stopped supplies to Ukraine, citing $4.5 billion in unpaid bills at the time. The debt has now swelled to $5.3 billion, according to Gazprom, the world’s biggest natural gas producer.

The gas crunch follows a political crisis between Russia and Ukraine after Ukraine’s Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted amid street protests in February. Gazprom then rescinded a gas discount it had previously granted Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin also stripped Ukraine of a 2010 export-duty reduction that it exchanged for a lease on its Black Sea fleet’s port in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in March.

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