European Energy Commissioner GüntherOettinger and Russian Energy Minister Novak agreed during a phone conversation to schedule a bilateral meeting in order to further discuss issues related to energy security, Oettinger’s spokeswoman Sabine Berger said on June 8.
She told New Europe that there is no date set yet. “Possible dates for this bilateral meeting are being explored. The aim is to pave the way for another round of trilateral consultations between the EU, Russia and Ukraine,” Berger said.
She noted that it will be a bilateral meeting between Oettinger and Novak without the presence of Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuri Prodan. “But the aim is to have another trilateral at some point afterwards,” Berger added.
Given the agenda and travelling activities, the meeting is not planned to take place this week.
Prodan announced at a briefing on June 7 that at present there has been no agreement on resuming the trilateral Ukraine-Russia-EU talks on gas yet. Oettinger said earlier that he hoped to hold trilateral meetings before the EU summer break in August.
After long and ineffective talks, Russian gas monopoly Gazprom in June said it would send natural gas to Ukraine only if paid in advance. Now the Ukrainian gas transportation system only receives gas meant for Europe. Gazprom says Ukraine’s gas debt is in excess of $5 billion.
Alexei Kokin, a senior oil and gas analyst atUralSibFinancial Corp, told New Europe on July 8 that he is skeptical that the meeting between Oettinger and Novak will produce any result. “I’m not banking on this meeting with Novak because really important meetings usually include someone from Gazprom and someone from the government at the most senior level,” he said.
Previous pricing rows between Ukraine and Russia have resulted inknock-on disruptions forEU customers, but no country has reported problems since gazprom cut supplies toUkraine on June 16.
Kokin said that the end of summer is the unofficial deadline for a peaceful and reasonable resolution of the Ukrainian gas crisis. “If it’s not going to be resolved more or less to the satisfaction of both sides, then I suppose there will be a gas war like the same sort we’ve seen before,” he said. “The best time to start a gas war is winter. It would immediately escalate into a potentially serious supply crisis for Europe and that’s the worst case outcome. I’m hoping that something will be hammered out by the end of summer,” Kokin said.
He reminded that Ukrainian storages are not receiving gas from Gazprom, only importing a little bit from Poland and Hungary. “They have to deplete their storage because their production is just inadequate for consumption even for the summer,” he said.
Earlier Novak said that Brussels and Moscow wanted to agree on a meeting to discuss the situation with the planned South Stream gas pipeline and consider issues connected with the pumping of gas into underground storage facilities and provision of gas to European consumers.
Gazprom is implementing the South Stream project to diversify deliveries of natural gas to Europe bypassing Ukraine and reduce dependence on transit countries. But the EU has warned that intergovernmental agreements between Russia and the EU countries that would host South Stream on their territories are in violation of EU law.
South Stream is aimed to deliver Russian natural gas across the Black Sea to South and Central Europe. The pipeline construction was launched in 2012 with the first deliveries expected in 2016, and it is expected to become fully operational in 2018.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on June 7 that South Stream should not be politicised, a stance President Vladimir Putin had repeatedly voiced at various occasions.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/oettinger-novak-jump-start-eu-russia-ukraine-gas-talks