Brussels, 25/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 25 November, the Russian gas company, Gazprom announced the suspension of its supplies to the Ukrainian gas company Naftogaz, due to unpaid supply prepayments.
Alexey Miller, Gazprom CEO, warned: “Ukraine has begun actively offtaking gas from its underground storages, which had not been sufficiently filled yet. The refusal to buy Russian gas creates serious risks for the safe gas transit to Europe as well as to supplies to Ukrainian customers in the coming winter”.
In an interview on Thursday, the Commission said: “We are not particularly concerned about the gas flow from Russia to Ukraine”. Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, the Commission spokesperson, commented, “Russian gas flows to the EU are normal and Ukrainian gas reserves stands at 16.5 billion m³, which corresponds to the same level as last year over the same period. Ukraine has its own production and uses gas from Slovakia. The weather conditions in November were mild, which means that less gas was consumed than is usual for this time of year”.
The Commission will ensure that the protocol for the agreement concluded under EU mediation on 25 September last to guarantee Russian gas supplies to Ukraine for the winter of 2015/2016 (see EUROPE 11398) is indeed implemented, concluded Itkonen. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)