MOSCOW - Russia may take part in a consortium to manage Ukraine‘s gas transport system (GTS) if its interests in this project will be well ensured, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has said. Moscow is concerned that EU energy regulations may hurt Russian gas monopoly’s interests. Medvedev said an alliance between Russia and Ukraine may exist only if Ukraine leaves a large number of institutes, including the agreement on joining the Energy Charter. “If Ukraine is not interested in this, then, please, we will develop in our own way and Ukraine may remain a part of any international agreement,” he said.
Gazprom has started building the South Stream gas pipeline that will bypass Ukraine.
“As to the consortium, Ukrainians should understand themselves what they need. If they need this consortium, either bilateral or trilateral, they should make us interested in taking part in it,” Medvedev told reporters.
This proposal will be interesting to Russia, if the interests of Gazprom and the state are guaranteed in the consortium, he said. The guarantee deals with the fact that “we will not get in a situation when they in certain conditions will just oust us from the consortium or will find us falling short of certain European rules or provisions of the agreement that defines [Ukraine‘s] relations with the Energy Charter,” the Russian premier said.
The talks on Ukraine’s gas pipelines are underway. “Our Ukrainian colleagues send us signals from time to time, but there is nothing but signals,” Medvedev said. “If there are interesting ideas how to work, if we feel that we are viewed as a full-fledged long-term partner, we will of course continue this conversation,” he said.
Ukraine has tried to convince Russia to lower gas prices. But Medvedev and Russian President Vladimir Putin have tied lowering gas prices to Ukraine joining the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.
On 19 March, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov told a press conference in Kiev that Ukraine intends to obtain observer status in the Customs Union.
Azarov also said the creation of the trilateral consortium for the management of Ukraine‘s GTS depends on European partners.
Konstantin Simonov, head of Russia‘s National Energy Security Fund (NESF) in Moscow, told New Europe in Moscow that, according to his sources in Ukraine, Kiev is also looking at the possibility of leasing Ukraine’s GTS to Russia but the terms Kiev will ask for have not been decided.
Dmirty Abzalov, vice president of the Centre for Strategic Communication, told a forum organised by the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation on 22 March that Ukraine does not want to sign the Custom Union agreement anytime soon.
After South Stream is constructed, Ukraine’s GTS will not be needed, Abzalov said. He noted that Russia proposed three years ago to form a consortium to upgrade Ukraine’s gas transit system and it was rejected. “After we begun South Stream we don’t need that consortium. At the latest talks, the Russian party is not as interested because so much investment is involved in the underwater part of South Stream,” he said. “If we pour so much money in South Stream and in parallel become involved in the consortium to upgrade Ukraine’s pipelines it will not be rational,” he said.
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