Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said on Tuesday he could foresee no problems
with gas payments by
Ukraine
after the presidential elections in the former Soviet republic.
"
Ukraine
pays for gas under the contract in full. After the elections, the
situation will not change and a regular payment is due to be made on February
7. I am confident that
Ukraine
will pay in full," Miller said
Ukraine
on Sunday held its first presidential elections since the 2004 Orange
Revolution that brought west-leaning Viktor Yushchenko into power. Opposition
leader Viktor Yanukovych is leading in the presidential poll with 35.34% of the
vote followed by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko with 25.04%.
Russia
,
which supplies around one quarter of
Europe
's gas, briefly shut down supplies via
Ukraine
's
pipeline system at the start of last year amid a dispute over unpaid bills and
new prices.
The conflict was resolved when Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and
his Ukrainian counterpart Tymoshenko reached a deal on gas imports and transit
in mid-January 2009.
President Yushchenko has consistently called for the deal to be
reviewed, something that has been ruled out by both
Russia
and Tymoshenko, once an ally of Yushchenko but now a bitter rival.
Miller also said that Gazprom was prepared to buy all the gas that the
South Caucasus
republic
of
Azerbaijan
could supply.
"The specifics of the contract with
Azerbaijan
are that there is no upper limit for gas purchases. This is Gazprom's sole
contract which prescribes such conditions. We are ready to take as much gas as
our Azerbaijani colleagues are prepared to supply," Miller said.
The two ex-Soviet states signed a contract on
October 14, 2009
, under which the
South Caucasus
nation was to supply 500 million cu m of gas to
Russia
from
January
1, 2010
, with the possibility of increasing
the import levels.
The contract raised concerns in
Europe
, which looks to
Azerbaijan
as a potential contributor to the Western-backed Nabucco pipeline,
which would circumvent
Russia
in a bid to reduce
Europe
's dependence on Russian energy supplies.
The Azerbaijani State Oil and Gas Company said in late December that
Azerbaijan
would double natural gas supplies to
Russia
to 1 billion cubic meters per year from 2010.
Miller also said that Gazprom was prepared to boost gas supplies to
Turkey
,
if necessary.
"In recent years,
Turkey
has regularly asked us about gas supplies above the contracted volume in winter
time... We have always met
Turkey
halfway and supplied additional volumes," Miller said.
(
from RIA
Novosti)