Russia’s Gazprom says may start gas supplies to Ukraine Oct. 12
* Gazprom halted gas supplies in July
* Ukraine’s Naftogaz says made prepayment on Friday
(Adds Naftogaz comment)
MOSCOW Oct 9 (Reuters) – Russia’s top natural gas producer
Gazprom said on Friday it had reached an agreement
with Kyiv on prepayment for gas purchases and will resume
supplies to Ukraine on Oct. 12, once the payments are made.
Gazprom halted gas supplies to Ukraine in July after Kyiv
failed to make prepayments for purchases. Last month, Russia and
Ukraine signed a tentative deal on a so-called “winter package”,
agreeing technical details.
Alexei Miller, the head of Gazprom, said Ukraine’s state-run
energy firm Naftogaz had asked to buy 2 billion cubic metres of
Russian gas this month, a volume later confirmed by a Naftogaz
spokeswoman.
“Agreements have been reached just now with NAK Naftogaz of
Ukraine about forward payments for gas in October,” Miller said.
It was not immediately clear if the deal had been agreed in
full.
Naftogaz said it had made a prepayment to Gazprom on Friday.
It did not say how much it had transferred, but an industry
source said the price amounted to $227 per 1,000 cubic metres
for the fourth quarter of 2015.
Moscow and Kyiv signed a 10-year gas supply deal in 2009,
but after Russia’s annexation of Crimea last year and an
anti-government uprising in eastern Ukraine Russia has twice
halted gas flows to its neighbour, citing price disagreements
and Naftogaz’s debts.
(Reporting by Polina Devitt in Moscow and Pavel Polituyk in
Kyiv; Writing by Maria Kiselyova, Vladimir Soldatkin and
Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Christian Lowe, Susan Fenton and
Adrian Croft)
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