Ukrainian president calls for review of gas contracts between Naftogaz and Gazprom

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has again called for a review of gas supply contracts signed by Naftogaz of Ukraine and Russia's Gazprom.

"The so-called contracts should be considered calmly and properly," he said at a council on Thursday.

In his opinion, such agreements if they are not reviewed, "will bring economic servitude to Ukraine for [many] years."

Yushchenko said that in such a case, Ukraine would "lose its gas transportation system [GTS]."

"Ukraine has actually lost the prospects for state control over the gas transportation system," he said.

Yushchenko said that as president, he would insist that "there be a national law that will prevent the other use of the GTS, as the exclusively national monopoly - state ownership, state management and state regulation."

"There won't be any other model," Yushchenko said. "We should walk the path of legal regulation between what we've agreed on and what is demanded by national law," he added.

On January 19, 2009, Gazprom and Naftogaz signed long-term contracts for 2009-2019 on the supplies of Russian gas to Ukraine and its transit to the European Union countries.

According to the contract on gas supplies to Ukraine, the gas price will be calculated under the European price formula, with the gas price being USD 360 per 1,000 cubic meters in the first quarter of 2009. From January 1, 2010, Gazprom will sell gas to Ukraine at a market-oriented European price without any discounts.

Ukraine officially claimed that it was interested in reducing the contracted amount of gas in 2009 from 40 billion cubic meters to 33 billion cubic meters.

UKRINFORM