EU-Ukraine-Russia Talks Secure Gas Supplies For Coming Winter

After several rounds of trilateral and bilateral negotiations over the last months, at Friday’s meeting chaired by Vice-President for Energy Union Mr Maroš Šefčovič, the European Commission, the Russian Federation and Ukraine have agreed on the terms of gas deliveries to Ukraine for the upcoming winter period from the 1st of October until the end of March 2016. They have initialized the binding protocol and submitted it to the respective governments for confirmation.

Vice-President Šefčovič said, “The agreement on the terms of the new Winter Package is a crucial step towards ensuring that Ukraine has sufficient gas supplies in the coming winter and that there is no threat to the continued reliable gas transit from Russia to the EU. The initializing demonstrates that both parties live up to their roles as reliable partners in the gas business. I am confident that the agreement will be soon confirmed and smoothly implemented for the benefit of all parties concerned.”

According to the initialled protocol, Ukrainian side commits to securing natural gas transit through its territory to the EU, including via injecting 2 bcm of natural gas into underground storage still in October 2015.

The Russian Government commits to lowering the gas price to Ukraine, by means of decreasing the export duty, to a competitive level comparable to the neighboring EU countries both in the 4th quarter 2015 and in the 1st quarter 2016.

The European Commission continues its efforts towards organising, through European and international financial institutions, the necessary financing for gas purchases by Ukraine during the winter period, as part of which at least 500 Million US $ should be available by the end of this year.