Russia's state gas company Gazprom yesterday boosted natural gas exports to Europe to redress sudden shortfalls after it cut supplies to Ukraine, and offered some form of compensation for disruptions.
Although Ukraine continued to siphon off gas from the European exports, Gazprom would make good losses, a spokesman said in Moscow.
But the company was not prepared to cover the "theft" of gas indefinitely, he added.
A special meeting of the EU's natural gas coordination group is to take place in Brussels today to discuss supplies amid an increasingly bitter war of words between Russia and Ukraine.
Despite the rhetoric, the two sides were to hold talks yesterday on resolving the gas cutoff, a spokesman for Gazprom said.
Spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said that Ukrainian officials were on their way to Moscow for the talks at Gazprom's headquarters. He did not specify who would be taking part, but said the talks would be "at a sufficiently high level."
Meanwhile, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov called on the EU yesterday to put pressure on Ukraine to ensure that full supplies of Russian gas transit to European countries.
"We ask that influence be exerted on the Ukrainian side to bring it back to lawfulness and guarantee it completely fulfil international commitments of the unimpeded transit of natural gas through Ukrainian territory to European Union countries," he wrote in a letter quoted by Russian news agencies.
He said Russia was ready "to fulfil strictly all existing agreements and contracts with our EU partners in the interests of strengthening the energy security of the continent."
The letter was sent to Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, who took over as EU president on Sunday, state-owned RIA-Novosti and ITAR-TASS news agencies said.
Gazprom cut deliveries to Ukraine on Sunday in a dispute over price. Since it sends about 80 percent of its European export volume through Ukraine, supplies were also disrupted to a number of other countries.
Germany, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Serbia-Montenegro, Romania, Italy and France all reported decreases of up to 30 percent in the amount of Russian gas received since Jan. 1.
The company said it would add 3.96 million cubic meters an hour of gas shipments to Europe to compensate for the shortages.
Austria's oil and gas group OMV director Wolfgang Ruttersdorfer confirmed that the vital energy supply was flowing again, saying late on Monday that Russia had started delivering a "full supply" of gas to countries in Europe.
Poland's PGNiG fuels distribution company said yesterday that pressure in Poland's natural gas pipelines had also returned to normal levels. Overall Poland saw a relatively small 8 percent decline in Russian deliveries from Ukraine during the crisis.
Gazprom will also increase supplies to Europe through the Yamal-Europe pipeline that crosses Belarus and through the Blue Stream pipeline to Turkey, spokesman Kupriyanov said.
The showdown between Moscow and Kiev has sent a shiver across the EU, which gets 25 percent of its gas supplies from Russia.
also see story:
Oil rises on worry over growing Ukraine gas dispute
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS