“And I’m absolutely certain from all my years working on Turkey, living in Turkey that the Turks are too smart to allow themselves to undermine their own strategy, which is to become the central transit hub, trading hub over time of natural gas with good relations with Russian Federation on natural gas, but not dependent on Russian Federation – in fact, having diversified supplies so they can reduce the price of gas they pay from Gazprom, which is the highest in their portfolio”, Bryza said.
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“At 10:00 this morning [07:00 GMT], Gazprom began deliveries of gas to Ukraine”.
Miller said that gas supplies resumed (at 0700 GMT) after Gazprom received $234 million out of a total of $500 million expected in pre-payment for October gas deliveries.
Those interruptions have not only been problematic for Ukraine, where winter temperatures can drop to -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit), but also for Europe, which relies on Gazprom for about a third of its energy needs.
The agreement will last until the end of March 2016. The European Union has allocated $500 million to Naftogaz to ensure gas supplies of 2 billion cubic meters (bcm) as storage for the winter season. Earlier, Ukraine was paying $252 per 1,000 cubic meters.
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According to him, this is one of the scenarios developed by Ukrainian authorities, but the weather is frosty and the country will still need supplies of Russian gas to meet peak demand.
