Russian Key to Turkmenistan Natural Gas
On October 5, President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine completed a two-day working visit to Turkmenistan. The President was accompanied by Oleksandr Chaly, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs; Serhiy Yermilov, Minister for Fuel and Energy; Vadym Kopylov, president of the Naftohaz Ukrayiny National Company; and Petro Hermanchuk, First Deputy Minister of Finance. The delegation’s lineup reveals the subject of negotiations: the visit was crowned with signing Ukrainian-Turkmenistan documents on gas supply. In addition, President Saparmurad Niyazov of Turkmenistan was awarded the Ukrainian Order of Yaroslav the Wise, First Degree.
Shortly before, on Monday, a Ukrainian delegation headed by Mr. Chaly had visited Moscow. It looks like this visit played a decisive role in the results of the Ashkhabad talks, for it is Moscow that sets, to a considerable extent, the transport price of Turkmenistan gas for Ukraine.
Yet, commenting upon the results of the Moscow talks, Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko spoke more than vaguely: “The Russian side has seriously moderated a number of principles, which we welcome, but we still want to stick to some other principles of ours.” Mr. Yushchenko added the details would be made public after his talks with Nikolai Kasianov. But The Day’s experts believe they will come out immediately after the Ashkhabad negotiations.
Speaking about the possibility of Ukraine’s gas debt restructuring, Mr. Yushchenko said, “There is a proposal to restructure the debts arising from the current supplies. Talks have been held, so we will be able to discuss this after formalizing and signing the agreement on current delivery and rescheduling.” As the premier pointed out, “We discussed this, and we saw clear understanding and support by the Russian side of such an instrument as seasonal restructuring. In other words, this means introduction of such an instrument as a technical credit for a few months,” Interfax-Ukraine reports.
Judging by the amount of fog in the premier’s statement, one can suppose it is too early to speak about great progress in the talks with the Russian side. Much more optimism can be found in Mr. Yushchenko’s comments on the talks in Turkmenistan. “There are good positive results here,” Mr. Yushchenko claims, “It’s like a good effective subcontract which improves the structure and even the price of deliveries.”
Earlier, the Turkmenistan President had said his country was prepared to sell gas at a uniform price for all, $42 per 1,000 cubic meters on the border between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Ukraine is supposed to receive up to 20 billion cubic meters.
In July government delegations of Ukraine and Turkmenistan initialed in Ashkhabad a protocol on the supply of Turkmenian gas to Ukraine in 2000-2010, which envisions the supplies to grow from 20 to 50 cubic meters. It was planned the price would be $42 per thousand cubic meters on the border with Uzbekistan. Mr. Kuchma later criticized the Ukrainian delegation because, in his opinion, the gas price will in this case increase to $90 after transport across the territories of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Russia.
P.S. The presidents of Ukraine and Turkmenistan signed an agreement, according to which Ukraine will be supplied with 25 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2000-2001. This year Ukraine will buy five billion cubic meters at $38 dollars per thousand cubic meters. Under the agreement 40% of the gas will be paid for in hard currency and 60% in goods and investment projects.
