Ukraine blocks the transit of Russian gas to Europe
Europe is still freezing. The resumption of Russian gas supplies via Ukraine, announced for yesterday, has not taken place. Contrary to earlier agreements, Ukraine's Naftogaz has not fulfilled Gazprom's order for the transit of 76.6 million cubic metres of gas. The Ukrainian side said it "lacked the technical opportunity" to do so. The emergency, provoked by the actions of the transit country, forced Russian and European Union leaders to step in. After a telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev dashed to Moscow. The Russian Prime Minister personally briefed European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on the situation with the Ukrainian gas transportation system. "It doesn't work," he told Mr Barroso over the telephone.
Meanwhile the efforts of the Russian and European officials are bringing no results: Ukraine is not budging. Naftogaz representatives announced yesterday that Gazprom's attempts to resume transit would be blocked.
The delivery of gas from Russian territory to the Balkans via the Sudzha gas metering station (in the Kursk Region) started on schedule. At 10.00 Moscow time the chief dispatcher at the Gazprom dispatch department, Sergei Pavlov, gave an order to the Gazprom Transgaz Moscow Company. "Please ensure the flow of gas via the Sudzha gas metering station to the territory of Ukraine in the amount of 3.12 million cu m of gas an hour, or 76.6 million cu m in 24 hours, to ensure gas transit via the territory of Ukraine to consumers in the Balkan region, Turkey, and Moldova. Carry out the command!" he said, looking into TV cameras. In the early morning hours, the station was to run in test mode with minimum pressure in the pipes to check the functioning of the system. That stage was to last about an hour and a half, whereupon the system was to be launched in standard mode. Russian gas was to reach European consumers within 24 hours, but these plans were blocked.
GAS WAS SHUT OUT
After several hours it became clear that gas was not reaching Ukrainian territory. Contrary to the declarations by Naftogaz which reported that gas was flowing and that the pressure in the system was rising, sources at the international monitoring commission reported that taps at the entry to the Ukrainian gas transportation system from the Russian side had been shut.
"Pressure in the Sudzha gas pipelines has grown to 75 atm, but the gas takeoff at the entry to the Ukrainian transportation system is zero, which means that Ukraine has shut down entry taps," the source said. He also noted that the state of the Ukrainian gas transportation system on the border with Russia could only be accurately assessed at the central distribution office of Naftogaz, but, contrary to all the agreements, international monitors have been denied access to it.
Russian representatives have also been denied access to monitoring objects, as Gazprom head Alexei Miller reported to Vladimir Putin yesterday. He said that in response to Gazprom, the representatives of the Ukrainian holding company said, "Let us exchange letters", to which Vladimir Putin remarked that, "Letters are not what the European consumers need".
UKRAINIAN EXPLANATIONS
Thus Ukraine failed to meet any of the terms of the three-partite agreement signed in Brussels recently. Instead, Kiev accused Moscow of seeking to bring Ukraine into disrepute in the eyes of the European Community.
"The Russian application for alleged resumption of gas supplies is absolutely provocative because it sets a technologically unrealistic task for the Ukrainian transportation system," the Ukrainian President's representative for international aspects of energy security, Bohdan Sokolovsky, said yesterday.
He said that the Russian side had deliberately planned the action to prevent gas being supplied to where it was most needed, i.e. Bulgaria and other Balkan countries.
"Traditionally, gas flows in the direction of Orlovka through the transport corridors via the Valuiki gas metering station (Belgorod Region) and Pisarevka station (Rostov Region). The route through Sudzha proposed by Gazprom means that gas has to be delivered through a bypass, which would paralyze the internal system of gas supply to the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. It is a provocation against Ukraine," he stressed. Mr Sokolovsky also noted that after gas supplies stopped, the Ukrainian system was switched to an autonomous regime, which means that it could not operate the proposed gas transportation route.
A SECOND ATTEMPT WILL ALSO BE BLOCKED
Gazprom dismisses these declarations. "There can be no reasons for gas not being pumped," said Alexei Miller, explaining that the Sudzha gas metering station is intended to operate "exclusively in export mode and that gas must reach European consumers". Alexander Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Board, said that the transit routes proposed by Ukraine (via Valuiki and Pisarevka) are intended not for export but for internal consumption.
Gazprom will make another attempt to resume gas transit to Europe today. Head of Gazprom Export Alexander Medvedev said that Gazprom's application for January 14 will be a carbon copy of the one filed the day before, as it will indicate the same route. "Let them first fulfill that order," he said, noting that what the Russian holding faced yesterday was nothing if not a blockade of Russian gas supplies to Europe.
Today may see a repeat of the same situation. "The head of Naftogaz, Mr Dubina, said in no uncertain terms: we have not opened the gas transportation system and will not open it," Alexander Medvedev told journalists.
According to Alexei Miller, Gazprom offered Naftogaz an alternative transit route, which the Ukrainian side rejected. "An application was filed on Tuesday for transit via Uzhgorod toward Velke Kapusany (Slovakia) of 22.2 million cubic metres of Russian transit gas. Ukraine rejected that route in the same way it rejected the Balkan one," the head of Gazprom told journalists yesterday.
If the parties fail to agree on the route before tomorrow morning, Europe will interfere in the situation more actively, European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs told a press conference in Brussels yesterday. "I expect gas supplies to the EU to be resumed at 8 a.m. tomorrow (at 10 a.m. Moscow time on January 14 - Gazeta). If that does not happen, I am going to tell who is responsible for this," he said.
Oksana Gavshina
