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Eastern Europe
January 25, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 19
balance” should involve Gazprom adhering to the Stockholm court’s ruling, a position backed by the European Commission, Vitrenko wrote.
Commenting on the futility of the proposal to prolong the existing contract with Gazprom, Vitrenko said that it not only contradicts EU energy regulations (which require a spinoff of the Ukrainian gas transit pipeline from Naftogaz), but also offers no guarantees for the amount of natural gas to be transited by Gazprom through Ukraine.
“The absence of a tangible result of the negotia- tions is what we have expected, and the chance that the Ukrainian and Russian gas monopolies will be able to reach any agreement by the end of 2019 looks negligible,” Alexander Paraschiy of Concorde Capital said in a note. “In our view, the only way for the Ukrainian side to secure tran-
sit of Russian gas in 2020 is to make EU-based traders purchase natural gas from Russia at the Russian-Ukrainian border. In this way, Naf- togaz will not have to deal with Gazprom at all. This task is easier to envision than fulfil, but we believe this is the best solution for all Ukrainian authorities to concentrate on in the remainder of 2019.”
Currently Gazprom holds all the cards on the transit issue. Attempts by some EU members, like Poland, to block the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline have failed, partly due to Germany’s insistence that the pipeline is an “economic” not a “political” project. The pipeline’s terminus is in Germany and will make the country a hub for Russian gas sales in western Europe. The 1,200km pipeline is currently about a quarter complete and ground has been broken on the German terminus.