EU energy chief says wants new Ukraine-Russia gas talks


* Current deal runs until end of March

* Russia wants Kyiv to pay off gas bill debts

* Ukraine went almost 6 months without Russia gas

(Adds Naftogaz quote, background)

By Barbara Lewis

RIGA, Feb 6 (Reuters) – EU energy boss Maros Sefcovic said
on Friday the European Union was looking to persuade Moscow to
open new gas price negotiations with Ukraine, a step that
Russia’s energy minister said he was ready to take only if
certain conditions were met.

A “winter package” between Kyiv and Moscow brokered by the
European Commission runs until the end of March.

It saw Russian gas exporter Gazprom resume
deliveries to Ukraine in December that had been halted for
almost six months in a dispute over prices and payment.

Kyiv and the EU, which uses gas shipped via Ukraine, are
keen to follow up on the winter deal.

Sefcovic, speaking on the sidelines of a conference in Riga
on Europe’s energy security, said he had raised the idea of
brokering new negotiations in Moscow last month.

“The response I got was: ‘What is there to negotiate because
after March we will simply come back to the contract?’,” he told
Reuters.

However, he said the Russians were willing to see “what kind
of additional elements” there were which might encourage them to
open new talks.

“We will see the situation after the end of March. What is
the state of play on the Ukrainian side,” he said.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told Rossiya-24
television on Friday that Russia is ready to negotiate a new
deal with Ukraine provided Kyiv pays its unpaid Gazprom bills, a
condition that could be tough to meet.

“If the point of this (new) agreement would be the debt
redemption then we are most likely to be ready to hold such
talks,” Novak said.

Russia has put Ukraine’s debts at $2.44 billion, including
fees. Kyiv disagrees with this estimate and says Moscow wants to
charge it far too much.

European summer spot gas prices for Ukraine could fall to
between $250 and $300 per 1,000 cubic metres, Ukrainian Prime
Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk said on Wednesday.

Ukraine is paying Russia $329 per 1,000 cubic metres
currently.

“The price should be much lower. We would expect that
Gazprom would adjust the formula to reflect market conditions,”
Andriy Kobolyev, chief executive of Ukrainian gas company
Naftogaz, told Reuters.

The energy row is part of wider tensions between Ukraine,
Russia and the EU.

On Friday the leaders of Germany and France were taking new
proposals to Moscow aimed at ending fighting in eastern Ukraine
that has killed more than 5,000 people and driven relations
between Russia and the West to post-Cold War lows.

(Additional reporting by Katya Golubkova in Moscow and Andreas
Rinke in Munich; editing by Jason Neely)