Ukraine and the European Commission (EC) plan to organize a roundtable meeting in Brussels in a bid to find investors and an operator to manage Ukraine’s gas transportation system, Yuri Vitrenko, a chief adviser to the CEO of Ukraine’s Naftogaz, said on Tuesday.
“At the European Commission’s request, we plan to organize a roundtable meeting in Brussels in the near future,” RT quoted Vitrenko as saying. There is no time to hold tete-a-tete talks with a big number of companies that are interested in this issue. So, we agreed with the European Commission that it would organize a roundtable meeting with participation of dozens of European companies.”
Ukraine “needs companies to help it quickly integrate into the European and global markets,” he said, adding that the roundtable meeting would also be attended by representatives from US companies.
Ukraine’s law on reforming the gas transportation system was published in the official publication of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) on Tuesday and came into effect on September 10. Under the document, the gas transportation system and underground storage facilities will remain in the government ownership but could be placed under the management of specially established companies, where the Ukrainian government would have a controlling stake and the remaining shares could be acquired by European and US companies.
Three-Party Gas Talks
A three-party meeting between Ukraine, Russia and the European Union on gas may be held in Vienna on September 16, Vitrenko said on Tuesday.
“We spoke with the representative from the European Commission’s energy department Klaus-Dieter Borchardt. He said a meeting is scheduled for September 16,” Vitrenko said, adding that Vienna was among possible venues for the meeting.
He said that the sides were to agree the agenda by September 16. “Talks are to be pragmatic,” Vitrenko said. “When we see that there is no more political pressure, we discuss economic issues. We must be sure that the talks proceed in a businesslike format.
Gas Flow
Ukraine's gas transport monopoly Ukrtransgaz said on Wednesday it had seen no decrease in reverse gas supplies from European Union countries to Ukraine over the last two days.
Earlier, Poland's gas monopoly PGNiG said it had been seeing lower gas supplies from Gazprom since Monday.
"We see no decrease and the volume of reverse gas which we are receiving from Poland, Hungary and Slovakia is stable at around 35 million cubic meters per day," an Ukrtransgaz spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday.
Assumed daily flows of natural gas from Ukraine to Slovakia amounted to 59.1 million cubic metres on Wednesday, just below the 61.1 million nominated for the day, data on the website of Slovak gas pipeline operator Eustream showed.
Small daily fluctuations in flow occur often and Eustream said in a daily report earlier on Wednesday that flows from Ukraine were running normally.
Poland's gas monopoly PGNiG said on Wednesday it was seeing lower gas supplies from Gazprom since Monday. According to PGNiG, on Monday the group received around 20 percent less gas than contracted and around 24 percent less on Tuesday.
