Recently, the representatives of Ukraine, Russia, and the European Commission met in Brussels to hold consultations about the transit of Russian natural gas through the Ukrainian gas transportation network to the European Union. A new round of negotiations is scheduled for the end of October.
According to Maros Sefcovic, European Commission's Vice President for Energy Union, the parties agreed that the future gas transportation agreement between Ukraine and Russia would be based on EU law. Ukraine's Energy Minister Aleksey Orzhel and his Russian counterpart Alexander Novak consider these talks constructive. Ukraine presented draft agreements to all parties.
"This is a roadmap in terms of an independent gas shipment operator to be certified by January 1, 2020, draft interconnector agreement, and draft transportation agreement," Orzhel said. Russia agreed to book transit capacities of the Ukrainian gas transportation network.
Kiev has to adopt EU energy rules with much hustle by January 1, 2020, otherwise Moscow proposes to extend the current gas transportation agreement for one year. At the same time, Russia is building new pipelines to Europe, such as Nord Stream-2 and TurkStream, to bypass Ukraine. Without these pipelines and taking account of the decision of the European Court of Justice on the Opal gas pipeline, about 80 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Russian gas will go through Ukraine next year. On completion of the two pipelines in 2021 gas flows through this cash-strapped country will fall to a maximum of 20 bcm.
