MOSCOW: Ukraine has paid $329 per thousand cubic meters for gas in first quarter of 2015 and Russian price will rise to $348 after that.
Ukraine’s energy minister said that Ukraine is confident Russia will have to sharply lower the price it charges Kiev for gas as increased imports from the European Union have greatly reduced Ukraine’s reliance on supplies from Gazprom.
Volodymyr Demchyshyn was speaking after gas supply talks in Brussels with Russia and the European Commission.
As expected, the meeting stopped far short of a deal, but the three sides said the atmosphere was constructive and they would meet again next month.
Russia understood that “in order to be competitive they need to go below $250,” Demchyshyn said in an interview. “I estimate the reasonable price that we will end up [at will be] between $240 and $250.”
With energy prices falling, he said he expected the gas price to fall to $210-$220 in the third quarter.
Russia has cut off gas supplies to Ukraine three times in a series of price disputes over the past decade. But Demchyshyn said increased imports from the EU, together with falling gas consumption in Ukraine and weak energy prices, had strengthened Kiev’s bargaining position.
“The Russian side understands that they need to be price competitive. As long as their price will be higher than the market price — the price for the gas that we can get from Europe — we won’t need Russian gas,” he said.
The commission, the EU executive, brokered an accord last October to keep gas flowing over the peak-demand winter months despite icy relations between Kiev and Moscow over the war in eastern Ukraine between government forces and pro-Russian rebels.
