Norway Started to Supply Ukraine with Natural Gas

According to news from Ukrainian media, Norway turned out to be the eventual winner of the energy dispute between Ukraine and Russia. On 3rd October, the press spokesman of Statoil ASA, the national oil company of Norway, announced that Statoil had signed a short-term agreement with the oil and gas company of Ukraine. On basis of that agreement, Norwegian natural gas will be exported to Ukraine through Slovakia. However, the specific export volume was not published.  

 

The agreement has been put into effect from 1st October. The spokesman said that supply quantity of this short-term agreement was relatively small. Nevertheless, he did not disclose the specific amount. 

 

The local media quoted another talk of a person from Ukrainian energy sector and revealed that Ukraine already received the first batch of natural gas. What is more, the price of these gas is much lower than that from Russia. In previous price negotiation over resumption of gas delivery, there still existed disagreements between Russia and Ukraine. 

 

From the beginning of 2014, Russia greatly increased its gas export price to Ukraine under the influence of aggravated relationship between them. However, Ukraine refused to pay for the these. On September 30, the minister of Russian DOE (Department of Energy) stated that Ukraine must pay both debt of the past supplied gas and prepayment of newly supplied gas. This is the precondition for resumption of natural gas. 

 

Arseny Yatseniuk, the Prime Minister of Ukraine, also said on 3rd October that Ukraine will ask for the help of judicial arbitration or purchase Russian gas at temporary gas price. Yuri Prodan, the minister of Ukrainian energy department declared on the same day that Ukraine would hold the trilateral meeting over Ukrainian gas issue again. 

 

According to messages from Russian gas company on 3 October, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia transited total 1.7 billion cubic meter of Russian gas reversely. Goldman Sachs warned that natural gas that being conveyed through Ukrain from Russia to Europe is faced with the risk of potential interference.